 Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Susan Collins, the Joan and Sanford-Wile Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and I am delighted to see all of you here this afternoon. Today's event is part of our annual City Foundation Lecture Series. This series enables the Ford School to bring some of the world's most prominent policy leaders and thinkers to campus. And I'm particularly honored to introduce a distinguished stateswoman who has served our country at the state and national levels for more than three decades, former U.S. Senator Olympia Snow. Now, before I introduce her more fully, I do just want to thank Senator Snow for being so very gracious with her time all day today. I wondered whether, as I know that she is used to spending time with another Susan Collins, that that might have perhaps helped her to feel part of our community so quickly. Senator Snow, thank you so much for all of the time that you spent with our students and our faculty today. We have really, truly appreciated it. Throughout her entire political career, our country has known Senator Snow as a dedicated moderate Republican legislator, advocating for compromise with her colleagues across the aisle. Because of this spirit and her commitment to national issues while loyally representing the interests of her constituents back home in Maine, Time Magazine once named her one of the top 10 U.S. senators, dubbing her the caretaker. Given this record, it really comes as no surprise that Senator Snow has so many friends throughout Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. And this particular attribute, a determination to reach compromise, reminds me of our school's namesake, President Gerald R. Ford. 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of President Ford's birth. And as the University of Michigan continues to honor the legacy of our 38th president, I am just delighted to welcome to our campus someone who carries on the search for common ground in our government. Well, before I invite our speaker to the podium, I'd like to remind our audience that if you have a question for Senator Snow, please write it on one of the cards that was passed out as you entered the auditorium. Ford School volunteers will begin collecting question cards at 4.40 p.m. And if you're watching online, you can submit your questions via Twitter using the hashtag policy talks. Ford School professors Paul Courant and Liz Gerber will facilitate the question and answer session. And two of our students, Chris Montgomery, from the Senator's home state of Maine and Colleen Campbell, Co-President of Women and Gender in Public Policy will ask Senator Snow your questions. And with that, I am so honored to invite Senator Snow to the stage. Thank you very much, Dean Collins, for that very gracious and generous introduction. I'm delighted to be here this evening with all of you here at the Rackham Auditorium, which is spectacular. In exchange for that tremendous introduction, I promised to heed the advice that was given to me by a very wise man some time ago. When he said, Olympia, a great speech is one with a good beginning and a good ending which are kept very close together. So I'm gonna try to heed that advice. Well, a good beginning is to say what a pleasure it is for me to be here this evening at the extraordinary Gerald R. Ford Public Policy School at the exceptional University of Michigan. And while I happen to be a graduate of the University of Maine, we have more in common than you might think. For instance, when we cheer our sports teams, we say go blue. Of course, I could go on and sing Hail to the Victor's Valiant, Hail to the Conquering Heroes, but you wouldn't wanna hear my voice. And anyways, I knew that would get your attention. But it is a pleasure to be here this evening. Most especially as Dean Collins mentioned, this coincides with the centennial of President Gerald Ford's birth, as well as the near centennial of the School of Public Policy. And I just wanna recognize Dean Collins for her extraordinary visionary and commanding leadership of this school that I'm sure makes you all very proud to be an extraordinary part of a nationally and internationally acclaimed public policy program. I had the opportunity, as I was conveying to Dean Collins earlier, to visit with so many talented students as well as accomplished faculty. In fact, I had meetings with Professor John Cicciari as well as Barry Rabe, and of course Professor Joe Swartz, who was a former congressman and felt right at home in all of these classes. But Joe and I had an opportunity to share our views. And I guess how I was answering the questions was sort of replicating the curriculum that Joe was teaching in the classroom. And that's because we share the same point of view in terms of being on the political spectrum, but also most importantly, our profound and deep concerns about the extremism in the political landscape that is having an effect on achieving results through governing. And that reality couldn't be more relevant to shaping the future of this country. And speaking of results, I have to say, I know I'm in Ann Arbor, and this is the district of Congressman John Dingle, with whom I had the pleasure of serving in Congress for 16 years. And of course, I know his remarkable wife, Debbie, who happens to serve on the advisory board here at the Public Policy School. I have to tell you that John was a real champion on some of the issues that were important to all of us and his historic 58 year tenure in Congress. I happened to serve as chair of the Commerce Committee, and I was co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, which was a bipartisan caucus that I worked with Congresswoman Patch Roader, Democrat from Colorado. And we had discovered that women and minorities were systematically excluded from clinical study trials. And so we were very fortunate to have such a strong advocate and champion in John as chair of the committee to help lead the charge for us, not only to prohibit such a discriminatory policy, which frankly meant the difference between life and death when you're excluded from these clinical study trials at the National Institutes of Health, but also to create the office of women's health and ultimately to make sure that this prohibition would be strongly in place in perpetuity. And believe me, when you go before John Dingell's committee, you get grilled. And I know I appeared that day along with NIH officials and he was grilling them, so I knew that change was on the way. And I also have to say that I had the privilege as well of working with both Senator Levin and Senator Stabenowth, who are an outstanding and highly respected Senators and dual on behalf of the State of Michigan. And of course, Senator Levin, I served with him on the Armed Services Committee and he is obviously one of the foremost experts on national defense and international security. And Senator Stabenowth, we served together in the Finance Committee and worked and tamed on the issues important to this State of Michigan as it is to my State of Maine, and that is how we can revive the manufacturing sector. And I just have to say, I applaud the auto industry and what has been able to be achieved over the last few years to create the resurgence and revival of that critical sector of our economy. But you know what, the bottom line is, that's what it's all about. I couldn't help but notice in the background that was given to me about the Public Policy School, there's one statement that describes it, for those who are eager to lead and for those who are eager to find solutions. And on that note, let me say that you can be more fortunate with your association since 1999 with a great American, obviously, who embodied the very standards of the highest principles of this country and was an example of true excellence. And that is, of course, the 38th President of the United States, President Gerald Ford, who was the revered son of Michigan and of course a revered alum here of this esteemed university. President Ford will be forever remembered for his unassailable integrity and his decency during what was a very challenging and difficult time for this country. He devoted almost the entirety of his life to his country and he represented the finest and the most ennobling ideals of public service. And throughout his tenure, he was a voice of civility, problem solving, consensus building and healing. And history will record that his contributions to this country were not only indispensable, that they were irrefutable. Our country looked to him for assurance and it was his stalwart character, his disposition and his judgment that renewed our confidence in our country and restored the public trust in the Congress and the President and reminded us of the strength and the durability of the Constitution. He engendered a hope that tempered our anxieties and allowed us to look to the future with optimism. And the resonance of President Ford's pragmatism and bipartisan approach to governing was in stark contrast to the current political environment that exists today. As President Ford stated, the rededication of his library, which keep in mind was 16 years ago. And he said and I quote, many find it impossible to listen to each other because they're busy shouting at each other. In some quarters, civility is mistaken for weakness and compromise for surrender. Politics is a clash of ideas, not a blood sport. It is a contest of principles, not a holy war. So instead of blaming the people for their mistrust of government, maybe politicians in both parties should ask themselves why the public is so turned off to politics. Now I probably could end my speech right there, but you're not gonna get off the hook that quickly. But seriously, that our system is what it should be all about. A marketplace of ideas predicated on consensus building, not a battle of ideology that constantly is a drive towards where no prisoners are taken. It's a concept that was well underscored by the highly regarded journalist, Koki Roberts, who was the daughter of Hale Boggs, who was a late Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives. And he happened to serve at a time when then Gerald Ford was a minority leader in the House of Representatives. And First Lady Betty Ford, who was a remarkable individual in her own right, asked Koki to speak at her funeral about a time in Washington where Democrats and Republicans were friends, when their families were friends, and that the main message was that she wanted to say is that when your friends, government works. And that's really how much it meant to both President Ford and Betty Ford. And that's exactly the picture that Koki ultimately portrayed and depicted in such eloquence when she said at the time at her funeral, they weren't questioning each other's motives much less their commitment to their country. Indeed, I think it's incredibly illustrative of President Ford that as one of your congressmen, Congressman Heisinger pointed out a couple of years ago is that the inscription of the President Ford statue at the base of the pedestal was from a Democrat, a former House Speaker, Tip O'Neill, who said Ford was the right man at the right time to put our nation back together again. Well today I would add that that spirit of bipartisan comedy and conciliation embodied by President Ford is the right way to put our political system and the government back on course. And that's exactly what I would like to discuss with you this evening, how the government and Congress has gotten off track, what has contributed to undermining the political process and what's behind the breakdown and what is it that we can do to make our government work again. This is the first of 40 years in which I am no longer serving in the legislative branch of government. And as you can imagine over those last 40 years and 34 of which I served in both the US House and the United States Senate, I've had many experiences, some good and some not so good. It reminds me of a story that the late Senator Charlie Matthias, Mac Matthias of Maryland who was a moderate Republican told me at one time. Senator Matthias owned a home on the island of Isla Hall off the coast of Maine that required taking a ferry from the mainland to the island. And one day Senator Matthias happened to be on the ferry and the ferry operator recognized him and he said you're Senator Matthias aren't you? And Senator Matthias said yes I am. And so they began a conversation and during the course of their discussion the operator said well there must be a lot of smart people in Washington out there. And Senator Matthias said well yes there are. And so the ferry operator said well I bet that there are a lot of smart people that aren't so smart as well. And Senator Matthias says yes I would have to agree with you on that too. To which the ferry operator quickly responded it must be getting harder and harder to tell the difference. Well you know back in the 70s it probably was amusing but you know so much has changed and it may be quite closer to the reality. But actually you know there are a lot of smart people in Washington. You know I've had the privilege and the opportunity to witness the government's potential Congress and working with the President and the President was Congress. And there have been many instances of where there was collaboration that produced results. But unfortunately those instances are fewer and fewer. You know I was in Congress long enough to experience firsthand what can be accomplished if people are determined to solve problems irrespective of the differences in their political and philosophical backgrounds. You know I saw from the beginning when I entered the House of Representatives in 1979 I was one of 16 women in the House of Representatives and there was one woman serving the United States Senate. And I joined the Congressional Caucus on women's issues I mentioned earlier. And at that time it had been formed by then a Democratic Congresswoman Liz Holtzman who was a pro-choice Democrat and a pro-life Republican Margaret Heckler. And they set aside their differences. So they could work on issues that mattered to women particularly at the time when the laws were working and discriminating against women and not reflecting their dual roles both at home and in the workplace. And so they set about to concentrate on that agenda. I ultimately became co-chair of that caucus for more than a decade. But when we spoke to those issues we spoke as women first. Not as Republicans and not as Democrats. And so we were able to transcend our differences and drove our agenda and we made a real difference for women. And it was a time in America where it's difficult to comprehend in today's environment where pensions were canceled without spouses being notified while child support enforcement was a women's problem where family and medical leave was not the law of the land. And as I discussed previously about the discriminatory policy that was embedded at the National Institutes of Health when it came to a clinical study trial but we changed all that and produced life-saving discoveries that making a difference even to this day. But the point is we summoned a can-do spirit and a collaborative efforts produced results. We saw that time and again when President Reagan assumed office he was facing the twin consequential events both with the Iranian hostage crisis as well as an economic environment where we had double digit inflation, employment, prime interest rates of 20%, we had an energy crisis. And so President Reagan understood that he had to build a coalition in a democratic house to make sure that he could engineer his economic plan. And I was part of that coalition, but it worked and we were able to pass a major budget in order to try to revive the economy. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush when we were having to face the event of Iraq and invading Kuwait, President Bush six to seven months early began to build that coalition both with the international community as well as within Congress in order to set the groundwork for the authorization to use force which ultimately happened to repel Iraq's evasion. He also brokered a pivotal budget agreement for which he ultimately paid a political price. And then of course President Clinton. He had to work with a Republican Congress and he believed in triangulation and staking out positions that weren't perhaps traditionally democratic positions but on issues that were important to Republicans at the time whether it was on tax cuts and welfare reform and or unbalanced budgets. And in fact, he at one point when he was delivering his State of the Union address he mentioned all of these issues that were traditional Republican planks and we know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And former President Reagan at the time said well you know that's tantamount to grand larceny. But President Clinton understood that he had to work with a Republican Congress and he did. And we not only achieved tax reductions but we had balanced budgets for the first time for four consecutive years that produced surpluses since the 1930s as well as overhaul of our welfare system which became landmark legislation. In 2001 after President George W. Bush was elected you know we ended up having a 50-50 Senate and I joined the Senate Centrist Coalition that had been revived since it was created back in the early 90s in the Senate during the healthcare debate in the early years of the Clinton administration. And at that time Senator Daschle and Senator Lott was the minority majority leader came to our coalition meeting because we now had a 50-50 Senate. We had major issues to address in the aftermath of the Bush-Gore decision from the Supreme Court and we wanted to make sure that we could preserve the bipartisanship that was so essential to driving a critical agenda for the country. And we had more than a quarter of the United States Senate show up for this meeting evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. President George W. Bush was able to pass the largest tax cut in history in the first six months given the fact that the tax burden had been the highest since World War II as well as educational reform that he had worked in tandem within the late Senator Ted Kennedy. But the point was that they worked in concert in a bipartisan collaborative effort to make things happen and not letting differences get in the way. These types of collaborative efforts I think demonstrates a kind of spirit that generally was the hallmark of the legislative process working with the President of the United States. Well, I made the difficult decision last year not to seek reelection to the Senate for a fourth term. And I came to the cold stark reality that the polarization and the partisanship in the Congress would not diminish on the short term and that I should take my fight outside of the institution and in a different direction. And as we can see the perilous inaction the dynamics that are underway persistently and consistently in the Congress continues to grow ever worse even with an intervening election. Just think about it, it was two years alone. It was two years ago where the poisonous political environment in Washington produced the legislative and financial brinkmanship at its very worst with the debt ceiling debacle of 2011. And we saw that it triggered the downgrade of our AAA credit rating for the first time ever to the point that it produced according to three economists the highest level of policy uncertainty of any event that had transpired over the last 20 years whether it was a Persian Gulf War, the horrific events of September 11th, the Iran and Afghanistan war, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and of course the financial crisis. But it tells you the degree to which it sent shockwaves across the country if not around the world. In fact, Chairman Bernanke said not too long ago in his testimony before Congress that if it hadn't been this state of uncertainty for the last four years and the polarizing debate that we would have unemployment levels near a 6% to 7% rather than the consistently eight to 9% that had characterized most of the last four to five years. The point is that we continue to face self-engineered and manufactured crises with Congress. I mean, the last Congress was bookended as well with a so-called fiscal cliff agreement which was the expiration of the Bush tax cuts along with the automatic tax cuts that were created by the debt ceiling agreement after the super committee had failed. And it culminated in the last vote for me but it happened to be the last vote of the last session at two o'clock on New Year's Day morning. Now, I think that that's illustrative of a process gone seriously awry. It wasn't as if we had a jam-packed schedule all year and we couldn't meet the deadlines. But again, it took that problem up to the 11th hour. So it's legislating by deferral and brinkmanship which is no way to govern a great nation let alone lurching from self-engineered crisis to self-engineered crisis which brings me to August of this year. The Congress adjourned precisely on the anniversary, two-year anniversary of the debt ceiling fiasco for their five-week recess. All the while knowing the prospects of a potential government shutdown was looming and of course a possible reprisal of the debt ceiling crisis that would be imminent by no later than mid-October. They did predictably what Congress always does which is the one certainty is to take their recess because they thought, you know, they'll just ignore the problem and of course return back in September and then deal with a crisis that they've let languishing on the table. As the Capitol Hill newspaper political stated, you know, the farm bill isn't done, the appropriation bills is in shambles and the immigration reform is stagnant and Congress is heading for the exit. You would think they would not want to invite any more trauma on the American people as if they haven't endured enough but yet Congress, as you all know, returned one week after Labor Day only to be confronted with the unexpected which was the extremely difficult and complex questions whether or not to give the present authorization to launch strikes in Syria that's now on diplomatic hold but it demonstrates the degree to which we have short changed the capacity of this country to grapple with key issues because it's a country that's run by deferral, delay and default. I can well recall as a member of the Senate Finance Committee back in 2011 when it was obvious we were gonna have a problem with the debt ceiling because originally the debt ceiling was scheduled to be raised mid-March and yet Congress didn't do anything when they came back in January and they got put off to May and then of course to August 2nd and the Chair of our Finance Committee to his credit convening meeting at some point said, you know, I think we really should try to weigh in and try to avert a crisis and to work on a debt reduction agreement so they could bring both sides together and I said at the time, we've gotta do something right. We are going to waste another two years in the precious life of America and we could ill afford to do that given the economic problems that we're facing our country but obviously that didn't materialize because both sides had stood down and to that very point Tom Friedman underscored this issue in a column that he wrote back in April. He said, you know, we wasted a time out for the last five years when we could have been focusing on healing the economy without a geopolitical conflict without a global rattling conflict that we could have been focusing on this key issue and yet now he says, you know, there could be multiple actors set to draw red lines and he included among the countries, of course, with Syria and that's precisely the circumstance that we're now facing today. The point is, is that the status quo of embracing politics over policies betrayed the opportunities that Tom Friedman discussed and it betrayed the kendo spirit that has always been the hallmark of America. The art of legislating has basically been abandoned for the gacha votes in the United States Congress and that's how I have described it. It's always about getting the other side to get the upper hand politically to leverage your position to the disadvantage of the other and so rather than legislating, they do messaging. You might hear they send messages with their amendments, the way they craft positions, how they're gonna structure the vote so that they can send the message to their political primary base rather than designing solutions that will appeal to the broader electorate and to broader population that will actually solve the problems in this country but they're much more predisposed to creating a 30 second soundbite that they can use in the next election and I think indicative of that process, of course, is the budget. Now, the regular appropriation process has basically been, has collapsed. I mean, we sort of have semi-annual budgets in Congress because we can't pass an annual budget. It's hard to imagine that the largest economy in America has not had a budget in four years. Now, Congress passed this year with great fanfare, no budget, no pay to a point. It was no pay if they didn't pass a budget in their respective chambers but they didn't say anything about it becoming law which is required by April 15th. Of course, that's long since gone, as you know, and it hasn't occurred. It's absolutely shameful, it's a travesty because the Senate has passed zero appropriations out of the 12 that are designed to fund the government which is what the shutdown is gonna be all about at the end of the month because of the end of the fiscal year in the beginning of the new one and the House has passed the four and yet they only have seven legislative days remaining to this month. You know things are bad when the House actually has, in fact, canceled their recess this next week realizing that they have very few days left to figure out how they're going to excrucate themselves to avert a crisis or to include a showdown on the key question of whether or not to continue the funding of government without extracting some conditions on the question of the Affordable Care Act which really incredible is that leaders from both parties recognize either a government shutdown or failing to raise the debt ceiling is a disastrous path for this country. But it's yet like ships passing in the night, the Democrats and the Republicans, one in the Atlantic and the other in the Pacific and that is because they've passed wildly divergent budgets, frankly, and as one paper described them, it's not even a version of apples and oranges, it's more like apples and bicycles because their budgets are ideological battle plans for the political parties, for their base. They're not designed to be blueprints for the fiscal future of this country and doing what's right. And it's not just that they're 90 to $100 billion apart. That wouldn't be insurmountable under normal legislative conditions. But what we're addressing here is the fact that there are philosophical differences that are sort of light years apart on keystone issues such as entitlement reform, on spending and on taxes in a Congress that is steeped and immersed in a harsh political environment. And that's what really makes the difference. So as a result, the Congress is now perpetuating dual self-inflicted wounds once again between this government shutdown potentially and or a debt ceiling crisis because of all the conditions that are now being placed in the House of Representatives. The question's really going to be whether or not that either side can dislodge from their ideological trenches. And exacerbating the struggle, of course, is that you have in one camp and the Republicans who are insisting on conditioning either extending the funding of government or raising the debt ceiling on defunding the Affordable Care Act or delaying the funding for a year. On the other hand, the Republican leaders recognize that the realism of that strategy isn't possible since the President has flatly rejected any attempts to delay or to defund the Affordable Care Act, which of course is his signature legacy issue. To further complicate the scenario, the automatic cuts. I mean, the Democrats would like to mitigate the impact on social programs by raising taxes. On the other hand, Republicans are wanting to ease the impact on defense by extracting savings from entitlements, programs, or entitlement reform. And the Democrats are saying that all has to be part of a broader agreement that includes tax increases. The Republicans will say, well, no, we've given up the office. We agreed to the fiscal cliff agreement early this year that includes raising taxes on the upper income. And so they are rejecting the idea of raising any taxes. So that's the stand down that ultimately has occurred. And as a result, I mean, the leaders and the President are going to have to inevitably decide on a strategy to how they're going to get the government funded before the end of this month, let alone in raising the debt ceiling. It really does require the President and the leadership in both the House and Senate to sit down and to sketch out a framework and strategy for dealing not only in the short term, but how to address the long term on the key issues that matter when it comes to the future of this country. Now, the House Speaker has said he's not going to raise the debt ceiling without cuts in entitlement spending or any cuts in spending that are greater than the increase in debt ceiling. And of course, the President said there are no preconditions and the debt ceiling increase vote is non-negotiable. Now, some have said, well, you know, we may be able to go back to what we did, you know, proposed in the past, which was to raise the debt ceiling, not to raise the debt ceiling, law makers can vote against it and have the President take responsibility for raising it. That's highly responsible. And then on the other hand, what they did earlier this year was to suspend raising the debt ceiling. Now, you would have thought in that instance that they would have taken that opportunity to forge a path forward, but unfortunately, they didn't. And so now we're up against a crisis scenario. As Ezra Klein said from the Washington Post, you know, with respect to the debt ceiling question, he said, you know, both parties' positions are mutually exclusive and what concerns him is he doesn't know what changes in either one of those positions to prevent a breach of the debt ceiling that will occur by mid-October. What is required is obvious to all of you. It's certainly obvious to me, and I'm sure it's obvious to most Americans that I have talked to. And that is, of course, the issue of compromise and consensus. Not too long ago, the former majority leader, Bob Dole, said that compromise isn't a dirty word. In fact, when Bob Dole was a majority leader, it was my first years in the Senate. And any time there was a difference either among Republicans or between Republicans and Democrats on key issues, he would ask us to meet in his conference room at 8.30 in the morning, and he would say, in his classic way, work it out. And that's exactly what we did. We worked it out. Instead of standing on the precipice of a cliff for each side angling for political leverage, you would have thought that they would have appointed a House, Senate, Budget, Conference Committee to resolve and reconcile those differences. I know that that sounds like an ancient legislative relic, but that's really how the legislative process used to work. That's where you would work out your differences face to face, communicating with one another, and sorting through the differences. I served on the Budget Committee for eight years in the Senate, two years in the House, and I know there were some very deep differences, but at the end of the day, you could work it out. Now, those conference committees are substituted by these 11th hour agreements that done behind closed doors, back room negotiations, no transparency, no accountability, and inevitably poor policy. Indeed, I think that Washington's abrogation of its leadership has unnecessarily brought us to this tipping point in this country, particularly in the context of the economic environment in which we exist. I mean, we are persistently, you know, subpar growth and high unemployment numbers for where we should be today in America. This is the worst post-recession recovery in the history of our country. So it's no wonder you have the highest, you know, the longest term unemployed and breaking records in that regard. The lowest number of employed Americans in 35 years, you have income inequality the greatest since the 1920s. You know, as one economist said, you're basically treading water, exactly, because we're not creating the kind of jobs that this recovery should be generating, and that's because of the failure and neglect of the key policy issues in Washington on regulatory policy and on tax reform that could have made an indispensable difference. And that's, you know, frankly, the issues that have really, I think, contributed to America's frustration, disenchantment with the governing institutions in Washington. When you see the level of debt, I mean, today they're saying, Harold, did the debts come down? Yes, it is on the short term because of several one-time events, which is the tax increases earlier this year, some one-time policy changes with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the CBO just issued this week. Look at the long term, the long term being 2016, we're in uncharted waters. The debt today stands at 73% of the gross domestic product. The end of 2007, it was 36%. And the debt is gonna continue to skyrocket because of the demographics and what it pretends for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security since 77 million Americans are set to expire over the next 20 years, and that's at a rate of 10,000 people a year. And so, as Bloomberg article stated recently, the neglect of Congress and its failure to address debt and deficits and neglecting the economic growth issues of this country that's affecting our global competitiveness is no longer debatable. But it's no longer debatable that the corrosive impact of Congress's inertia and action is having on the future prosperity of this country. And that is the cornucopia of dysfunction that, yes, did contribute to my decisions, what I described in the book that I wrote and why people always ask me why is it so challenging to achieve bipartisan solutions in Congress today? Why can't Congress solve at least the major challenges facing this country? And frankly, that's why I made my decision to leave the Senate. It's not that I no longer believed in this potential or that I no longer love the institution, but precisely because I do. But I decided that I should take my fight, as I said earlier, outside the institution in a different direction to harness my experience by knowledge of how the process works and to give voice to the frustration to 90% of the American people who think that Congress is far too partisan and they're certainly right. As I described in my book is how it used to work. Frankly, what surprised me more than not running for reelection in the United States Senate is that I wrote a book. I had not intended, that was not my agenda. But as somebody said, it's fun to have written a book, it's not fun to write a book and I can attest to that. But I decided to write the book because I wanted people to know there was a different way because I got that question constantly and even among some of my newer colleagues, you know, how was it different? And it was different and it can be different and it doesn't have to be this way and that's why I'm so passionate about changing the tenor of Congress. The fact of the matter is, I have experienced throughout my tenure that bipartisan legislative partnerships are absolutely crucial, if not indispensable to maximizing the potential of our governing institutions and to minimizing the political barriers because there is simply no other way. Now, it's not easy to arrive at compromise, it never is. But we can undertake the difficult work if we choose to do so. Some people will say, oh, you're talking about, you know, some golden era of bipartisanship. I've never suggested that. It's never easy, you know, to work through your differences if you feel strongly and passionately about some views. But I don't know how you solve problems if you don't talk to people with whom you disagree. So I describe in my book, you know, the political phenomena and how it has contributed to the monumental partisanship that we're grappling with today. It is true that the red states are getting redder and the blue states are getting bluer. In 1987, there were 57 senators who represented one party, but their states voted for the presidential candidate of the opposing party. Today, there are only 21 senators in that position. So what that suggests is that 79% of the senators have very little political incentive to cross the political aisle without the fear of the risk of incurring a primary challenge. The statistician, Nate Silver, did analysis of the House of Representatives. 20 years ago, a little more than 20 years ago, there were 102 seats out of 435 that were viewed to be competitive seats. Today, in his study, he has determined that there were only 35 competitive seats. It was another study, fear vote, that said there were only 21 toss-up seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And Charlie Cook, the political analyst, had said there were only nine. So that means that most of these elections are predetermined before any election occurs. The National Journal demonstrates in its analysis how this new trend in politics has contributed to the rise of the polarization and the partisanship that we're experiencing today. They began a review back in 1982. And at that time, there were 58 senators who came between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican. That meant that more than half the Senate occupied the middle ground. Today, for the third year in a row, and for the fourth time ever, the number of senators who fall into that category is literally zero. So that means that there is no Democrat who is more conservative than a Republican and there's no Republican who is more liberal than Democrat. And so there is very little crossover. In the House of Representatives in 1982, they had 344 members who were in the middle ground that would work on a bipartisan basis on various issues. Today, there are only 13 out of 435. So you can see how there is this ideological stand down in both sides in both the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Senate. Indeed, one study by three political scientists determined that we are at the highest level of polarization since the end of Reconstruction in 1879. And what does that tell you in more than 134 years that we are more polarized than at any other moment? Now, some people will say, you know, we've always had gridlock. Well, of course, there have been gridlock. And he said it has been worse in the institution of the United States Senate. You know, we had duels and canings and brawls. And I said, well, is that the standard by which we want to measure the United States Senate, you know, in the second decade of the 21st century? In early December, the majority leader, the minority of the Senate decided to invite senators and their spouses and some staffers to viewing the phenomenal movie, Lincoln, in the National Visitor Center Auditorium to aspire some collegiality because we had the imminent fiscal cliff crisis looming. And so we did. But I thought to myself, what does it say that we're looking to Hollywood for a dose of reality? I mean, you know, I said, so obviously that didn't work. You know, we're in the institutions of the United States Senate. You know, we're surrounded by history, but obviously not inspired by it. I'm concerned, you know, because there's very little institutional memory of how the process worked. I mean, today, you know, you have more than half the Senate that has had less than six years experience and more than half of the US House of Representatives has less year than six years experience. But what that tells you bottom line is, is that they're not familiar with any other legislative environment other than the current one of dysfunction. There used to be in time, you know, when governing was the guiding principle in the first year after the election, you could expect to work on the issues and go forward with the agenda and synchronization between the White House and the legislative branch. It's not that it was all hunky-dory, it wasn't. But we understood, for the best interests of the country, that we had to move forward on the identifiable issues at the time. Now it is focusing on the next election after the last election. In fact, we have lost the out of legislating. So many times I had threatened to go to the floor and to have some charts and to do a refresher course on how a bill becomes law, you know, like in schoolhouse rocks, you can say, you know, you put the bill in the hopper and you go from there. But the point is, it's true, because the legislative process has been virtually abandoned. So it's not surprising, then, that the last Congress was the least productive since 1947. And in that Congress was the 80th Congress that President Truman described as the do-nothing Congress. They passed 906 bills, contrasting that with the 283 bills that were passed in the last session of Congress. So you can see they're really not on the right track. Now some will say, oh, you don't need to pass bills to show that you're doing something, but that would be presuming they did everything else. But obviously they haven't. In fact, they've only passed 31 bills this year. And of course, that's contributed to the low rankings of approval rating. Last Congress, towards the end, it was like 10% to which one of my former colleagues said, who exactly is that 10% of things that Congress is doing a good job? And now the Congressional Proving Marines went up about five points in this last week. And I guess one of the newspapers noticed was it's likely only that high because some people now see Congress doing nothing as an improvement. In any event, Will Rogers would say, this country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. But it's just sort of where we're at. Congressional, very noted Congressional observers, whom you'd be familiar with because they have advanced degrees from the University of Michigan. That's Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, who I know spoke here this last year. And I remember them saying, people always say this is the worst Congress ever. He said, but they said this time they're right. Well, root canals are more popular than Congress if you look at some of the polls. But the point I think it is, is it demonstrating that we are at a point where we don't have the ability to solve the key problems facing this country. So the key question is, how do we get the Congress on the ACON track? Because basically that's what it's all about. I'm a can-do person. I know you are. This country is a can-do country. And of course, I never give up. My Spartan ancestry contributes to that, drive and determination. But the point is, we need to be valuing bipartisanship and consensus, building among our lawmakers in Congress. We need to reward those individuals who are willing to champion the propositions of compromise, willing to work across a political aisle, and to penalize those that don't. And I have created a multi-pack committee because I'm playing a multi-candidate committee because Olympia is the list. Because I'm willing to support candidates on both sides who are willing to maximize the power of elective office by doing what's right and coming up with sensible solutions to the time that the country deserves it. I have joined the Bipartisan Policy Center, which was co-founded by four former majority leaders of the United States Senate, Senator Daschle, Senator Mitchell, Senator Dole, and Senator Baker. And we've created a citizens for political reform movement and we believe that we can create a critical mass to launch in real time and demand accountability from our lawmakers to work on issues, come up with solutions. Why is immigration reform stagnating? Why have they passed a budget? Why do they go out on recesses when they haven't passed a budget, when they haven't passed one of the 12 appropriations to become law? Why are they facing all these crisis? We need to demand accountability. And it's all at our fingertips, frankly. We have online technology, we have social media, and we ought to be able to use the power of those venues to make our voices heard. Just as those who have fanned the flames of polarization, the manifested in Tea Party, Occupy, Wall Street, and an infinite number of other groups, the same is true for those who want to mobilize the people in this country who are demanding that their government should work. There are too many perverse incentives and the incentives are to divide, to thwart action, to encourage incendiary rhetoric so they can take it to the next election. So the forces of division are well organized and they're well funded. And so we have to be a counterweight to that extremism. And that's why we have to champion those who are willing to work to fix our country's problem and to take the risk of working with each other instead of against each other. Because ultimately, that's what it's all about. Warren Rubin, the late Senator from the state of New Hampshire said once politics is too important to be left to the politicians. Well, he couldn't have been more right. It requires each of us to be engaged in that proposition. That's why my book is gonna be an extension of that because I believe so strongly that we must churn this culture around before it becomes permanently embedded and thinking that this is the norm rather than the exception. And to the young people, to the students in the audience, don't take your cues from Washington, frankly. Because collaboration and consensus building are really the only routes to solutions. They're the ones, I think, that ultimately produce the ideal results that can move our country forward. I don't know of any other way. Because unless you have all of the votes, then you have to work with the other side. That you're not always gonna get 100% of what you want. That you have to respect differing views. And that you don't have a monopoly on all the great ideas. It isn't a question whether or not it's a Republican idea, a Democratic idea, or a liberal or a conservative idea. Is it a good idea for the country? And so often today, as I always used to describe how I was regarded, is that we're defined through the prism of MSNBC and Fox News. You're either on one side or the other. There's no sorting through the truth. And so you get those polarizing, polar opposite views rather than understanding and having the access to the differing propositions that can bring both sides together. The problem in the legislative process, if you don't have amendments and the ability to have both sides working together, you don't have a bridge for making the process work. There is no other way to bring both sides together. It is one thing to each offer your own positions and have votes on them, but when they don't prevail, you need to reconcile those differences. And that's precisely what is not happening. So the United States Senate has become more like a parliamentary system. As Americans, we have met our greatest challenges by working together without question. And that's why I happen to believe that we need to build a grill time grass roots movement to demand accountability and action from our lawmakers. We look at the FAA issue that was earlier this year as a result of the automatic cuts or the sequestration. And the sequester took effect in early March and the Congress a week before went on recess. Well, of course, there was a human cry because it was slowed down in flights due to the cutbacks in air traffic controllers. Well, the Congress immediately went to work, like in nanoseconds for Congress, because they didn't want to be caught stuck in planes with angry constituents idling on the tarmac and the pilot saying, sorry folks, this is due to congressional budget cuts. So they immediately turned it around. And so, I mean, that's the point. They did it recently in July on the student loan interest rate issue because they understood, rightfully, that that was gonna prompt a major outcry as it should. So it's about those voices. People say about background checks, you know, the 90, 10, 90% of Americans approved it, 10% didn't. And people ask me, well, why didn't it happen? And I said, it's about the 10%. You know, we have to make our voices heard and too often we underestimate that. And I wanna convey that point because I've told people that you should not minimize the impact of your voice and underestimate the value of your input when you're calling your representative or your senator or emailing them or sending them a letter. If they don't hear from you, they don't have the input and they don't have the impact. If they hear from you, it can make a difference. It does make a difference. So you cannot minimize your voices and particularly at this time. And it demands our action on our part. I'm convinced of it because I don't believe that it's gonna happen from the inside. We have to make divided government work. If it's a divided government between the two parties, then we have to make it work and they have a responsibility to make it work. As someone once said, bipartisanship isn't a political theory. It's a political necessity. I happen to think that public service is a very high and noble column. That's why I devoted much of my life to it and I made it my life's work because I loved it because I understood the value of using the office for good and righting wrongs and helping people and solving problems. That's what it's really all about. And they've lost their way in terms of the purpose of what it's all about. And I think that we have an obligation to restore it and indeed demand it. If I look at the origins of our country, this great country of ours when the founding fathers, well, you know, they weren't shrinking violets. They were deeply opinionated, sharply divided. They argued about many things, petty and consequential. But at the end of the day, they recognized the enormity and the gravity of the circumstances demanded the courage to offer a consensus to build the United States of America and the most ingenious document the world has ever known. I wanna make Congress the solution driven powerhouse that it once was. And that's reflective and emblematic of the can-do America that we have known and that we will know again. And I believe that we can recapture that spirit once again for the sake of America. So I thank you for inviting me to speak here this evening and I'd be delighted to answer your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Senator Snow. Good afternoon. My name is Colleen Campbell. Yes. And I'm a second year student at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and also in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. The first question from the audience is what training and skills are important for women who are interested in entering politics today? I say that, well, I think obviously it's pursuing a major in June here in public policy because I think that is critically important gives you the grounding and the background. I'm having a major in political science. I had hoped to work in government and contemplated at the time of running for Congress or for serving in elective office early on but I truly loved politics from an early age. I always say that I didn't have a resume, look what happened, I got a life in politics but so that's very important. It's also I think being involved in the local community building a network of support. I think so often women didn't have that network of support, whether it's financially or organizationally I think so much has changed today in that regard. Working with candidates who are running for office get to know what it's like and get familiar with it. That's another way that is possible to broaden your horizons and give you a better grounding and understanding of what it's all about and what it seems to be like. I don't know that there's any template because many individuals come from all different corners of life. In fact, when there were only nine women in the Senate instead of 20, we wrote a book, Nine and Counting and it was interesting just to see the variety in terms of our backgrounds and what launched our careers in public office and so there isn't any one template but it's nurturing an interest in the world around you whether it's through organizations, a community or a passion for an issue. I think passion is very important and believe in what you're doing. You might not see yourself as an elected official. I don't think that I ever saw myself an elected official but I felt strongly about issues and I liked helping others. I was telling a class earlier today that I actually discovered how I liked talking to people I didn't know by being a waitress in high school and I realized that that was a very important experience for me because my employers in Olympia, you gotta talk to people, be friendly to them. So I started talking, then I ended up talking too much but anyways, I didn't finally struck a balance otherwise he would have fired me in any of them but it's just those things and then I did a couple of internships in government when I was in college. One was working for the technical assistant for Head Start which was very interesting because it was part of the war on poverty programs and it's just getting up and running and so I was introduced to Head Start program which became one of my favorite programs and one that I gave my undue support to in fact and then the following summer, I worked for an individual who was a professor at Colby College and he was setting up the state office, the state planning office and so I got to work with him hand in glove and with a governor so that was quite an experience and so that all contributed and fused my thinking about the future and about politics. Hi, Senator Snow, my name's Chris Montgomery. I'm a master's of public policy candidate at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Anna Maynard. Anna Maynard, it's an honor to have you here. So, if you were coming of age politically in today's America, would you join the Republican Party? And this question comes from Twitter. That's an interesting question, hmm, that's a tough one. I think it would be hard. I mean, you know, people ask me and, you know, why am I my Republican? I used to get asked that all the time, by Republicans. No, actually, some Democrats too. You know, they ask me to switch parties, that sort of thing, you know. And it was a fundamental issue. It was a question of the role of government that my philosophy and I decide, you know, just early on and decided that the difference, you know, between Republicans and Democrats is what role government should play and when, you know. And I was sort of last resort, first resort, depending on the issue, that the government has to be there to provide that safety net. And government plays a key role when others can't. But I don't want government to always play a role and to be always in our lives, you know. So it has to orchestrate the right equilibrium. So it's more philosophical. Our party has sort of abandoned the whole, you know, notion in some ways of the issues that I think that are important and calibrate those differences, you know. There are times it matters for government to play a role in how it really does. I mean, you think about America today without social security, without Medicare. I mean, all of those great programs, civil rights, I mean, y'all were embraced strong by partisan bases and that's why they've been woven into the fabric of our great nation. And so, you know, so I see the difference. And, you know, when people say, you know, call me a Republican and name only, I say, well, you know, I've always been a Republican. And I know why I became a Republican. I haven't changed my party has. Now, I know there was a cartoon in the New York Times after I announced that I was not running again, you know, comparing me, talking about the way of moderate Republicans and at the end it showed, you know, moderate Republicans in a museum with a dodo bird. But it's like, in any event, I realize there are a few of us, but I know why I'm a Republican, but it would be hard under the circumstances to see the party as it is today to say, yeah, that's, you know, who I am. And so I would say that would be very difficult. And it would be in a conundrum because of that philosophical difference, but not for all the other issues. There was a time when they embrace, you know, the diversity, had your differences, but we all worked together because that was that big tent theory that even President Reagan's spouse, he understood we had differences, you know, he said, you know, but we agree on 80% on the issues, you know, whether it's on taxes and the role of government spending, you know, somewhat, but the bottom line is, you know, that's what we should unite around and not focus on the 20% of which we disagree, but now it's moved in an obvious different direction. So I hope the party changes because it will need to if it wants to ever be a governing majority in the future and reflect the diversity of America and have far more balanced approach to the issues that matter to Americans. Senator Snow, we've received just several questions about third parties. Do you think there are any prospects for the emergence of a meaningful third party? Probably not on the short term, but you know, it just adds a huge complexity to our political system, which we're not based, and then we, it's operated essentially in two party system, although, you know, in Maine, you know, we have independence, we've had independent governors, have an independent senator who succeeded me in the United States Senate or other independent, you know, officials across the country, but by and large, you know, you would hope that the two party system would work and it's the responsibility to make it work, frankly, but if it doesn't work, then obviously it does contribute to the genesis of third parties and adds to the difficulties that can arise, you know, when you start to, you know, fracture that political system, but the governing institutions of our country are controlled by both parties, and so both parties have a responsibility to make it work in the final analysis, but if it doesn't, then obviously, people are gonna choose another way, and so, I mean, I think that's what manifests on the frustration, and rightfully so, because the government's not working as it tends today, and it's not reflective of who we are. Senator Snow, having worked with many presidents, how would you compare the Obama administration's communication with Congress with that of other administrations? Oh, it's, how would I compare President Obama's administration and its communication with Congress with previous administrations? Much less. You know, I had the opportunity to work with the president, particularly on the health care legislation that ultimately became law, but for the most part, it's been minimal, and frankly, that's been a problem. The president has to engage the Congress, and obviously the Congress has to be willing to be engaged with the president. I mean, obviously it's a two-way street, but it has to work. You can't have the legislative and executive branches working in parallel universes. They have to intersect, and it's been my experience with previous administrations that the presidents weighed in considerably, not as if that they had to be there each and every day working hand in glove with Congress. Obviously they have their people representing them, but the fact is that they have to engage the Congress, agree on the kinds of issues that have to be addressed by Congress, what the timeline is, and how to get it done, where the differences have bipartisan leadership meetings on a regular basis. I mean, President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill had vast philosophical differences, and they had huge fights and tough words between them, but at the end of the day, they understood what was important for the country. They would get together for dinner on a regular basis and work it out, because they understood what their roles were, obviously, in presenting their positions and viewpoints, but at the end, they concluded what was necessary for the country, and they understood the give and take. There is nothing wrong with that. That's what made the process work. And so that has been true. And in this case, I think that President Bomber just has not regularized leadership meetings. I mean, he should be having leadership down there on a consistent basis, so they get to know one another and what's on their minds, what they're thinking, what the problems are, how can we get this done and drive it? I mean, that's what it's all about. In fact, I said, you know, you should embrace the Reagan model because that's what I saw. He was dealing with these consequential events in 1981. I mean, he had everything on the spectrum for emergencies, frankly, at the time, President Reagan suited, but he had his people who were well-disciplined, focused, came up on the hill and worked hand in glove with people who wanted to make it work. So I was in so many of those coalitions. We got the budgets done. We worked on a variety of issues, but they were up on the hill all the time. And you'll hear, you know, even Democrats say, you know, that they haven't been contacted by people who represent the White House, they haven't been contacted, you know, by the president. They haven't been contacted by leaders. I mean, even in his own party, with regular communications, you have to have that to make it work. The same is true between the leaders in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives. You can't get anything done if you're not talking to each other. And I know, and that is a serious problem, both internally in the Congress, but also between the president and the Congress. So I think of all the presidents, this has been the most minimal in terms of, you know, contacts and building a relationship with the legislative branch. I consider myself the exception, because I spent a lot of time with the president on the healthcare issue, but overall in terms of the interactions that presidents had. Now, you know, he made overtures this year to his credit. He did have some dinners and people are describing it as a charm offensive, but, you know, it has to get beyond that. It has to get into the substance and working out. And the same is true in the Republican side. I mean, they've got to be willing to engage and to compromise and to be flexible. You can't get it done if you get locked down, if you refuse, you know, to work it out. And that's basically what's happened. Do you foresee any meaningful filibuster reform in the near future? Would this be an effective way to confront congressional gridlock? It may well. It's tempered, you know, in some ways for the moment. They had a temporary agreement, although it almost hit a snag in the middle of the summer on this nuclear, so-called nuclear option, which would be Jettison's 60 vote requirement for nominations. And ultimately, they reached an agreement. They reached agreement at the beginning of the Congress between the majority and minority leader when he threatened to throw out the 60 votes and allow nomination, judicial nomination, to be voted based on a majority vote. That was similar to what had been proposed by a Republican majority leader in 2005. And I was part of what was called the Gang of 14, where I was called Gangs in Congress, and I don't know why they refers to gangs. In any event, there were seven Democrats and seven Republicans, and it was led by John Warner, the senator from Virginia, and the late Senator, Bob Byrd, from West Virginia, and John McCain was part of it. And so, seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and we reached an agreement that avoided going across the political Rubicon. Because when you Jettison the traditional rules of the Senate, it really has reverberating consequences. And we decided that we'd allow each of us to decide for ourselves what were the extraordinary measures that would require us to filibuster a judicial nominee, that it had to be extraordinary in the basis in which we would do it. So it was also predicated on trust that each of us would end up making the right decision on what constituted extraordinary measures. And that allowed us to break the log jam in 2005, and therefore the majority leader did not, you know, Jettison the 60 vote requirement. In January, similarly, the majority leader, the Democrat majority leader proposed Jettison the 60 votes. He and the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, reached an agreement. It's temporary for this Congress, but they almost hit a snag, as I said earlier, and they finally worked it out. My feeling is, if the filibusters become a problem, I'm gonna get into intricacies of what's going on, other than to say it's grown exponentially worse in multiple ways. But the filibuster was really designed to, because the institution of the Senate is predicated on the majority rule, but also in accommodating the rights of minority. The Senate, as an institution, is now designed as a majority rule institution, because it's supposed to work with one another's consensus. But if the filibuster continues to be a huge hindrance, I think that at least one step could be taken is to require a live filibusters. Now the leader doesn't like that because it holds up the business of the Senate. See, when you don't have a live filibuster, then everything stops. If you don't, they'll just move on to another issue, but it never solves the previous question. So I think that that would be a good start in that direction. I think Rand Paul sort of demonstrated that earlier this year with the drone question. But it's the point is, is that it holds up everybody, then it gets everybody's attention. They can't hold up legislation, you know, in the shadows by calling up from the airport saying I hold up a bill, because that's what happens now. I mean, it's not your traditional filibuster, like Mr. Smith who goes to Washington. It doesn't like that anymore. And so if you make it difficult, then it gets everybody's attention. Senator Snow, we have time for this one last question. Who remains in the Senate to carry on your moderate legacy? Thank you. Yes, well, there are a number of people. I might say I have my colleagues, Senator Collins, of course, great name. They even have the same middle initial. Who's also a moderate. I'm in time on my side, you know. There are people like, I always hesitate to name who's a moderate because, you know, I get them in trouble on our side. I have to keep it a secret every time they vote. But there are people on both sides, you know, for example, let me give you an example. When, last year, there was another gang of eight. They, on the debt ceiling, a debt limit agreement, which was going to reduce the debt over the long term. And I think that was co-chaired by Mark Warner, you know, from Virginia, a Democrat, and Saxby Chandlass, who is a Republican from Georgia. And it was a great group and they had agreed, you know, on a plan for debt reduction. But unfortunately, could not get a vote. It looked like it was moving in that direction which frankly wouldn't be facing the stalemate today on some of the fiscal issues had it been possible. But they weren't able to get to vote at that very moment in time and cinch it up. And unfortunately, the forces, those forces from the outside, groups who opposed whatever issues were involved on either side, you know, ultimately stymied it. But you know, that's a good example of how people can work together, those types of people willing to do it. And they're not always categorized. It could be conservatives. It could be liberals. The point is, is those who are amenable to the notion that you have to work on a bipartisan basis. Great things get done being bipartisan. That's the point. It's not about capitulating on your principles. It's a method by which you achieve results. I was able, in conjunction with J. Rockefeller, the Senator from West Virginia, early on we were doing the Rewrited Telecommunications Act which unbelievably didn't even accommodate wireless at the time in 1996. But I had this amendment and J had another amendment. I had an amendment to wire all the classrooms in America and libraries. J had one on healthcare facilities and to make them interactive in rural areas. And he came to me, he called me one morning, he said, Olympia, why don't we get together and join our amendments? I said, great idea. And my leadership of my side actually didn't want me to offer any amendments. They didn't want any amendments to this bill. It was the first major rewrite of the act since 1932. So they didn't want any amendments. But J kept coming over to me and saying, is it gonna be all right, are you still willing to do it? I said, don't worry, don't worry, I'll do it. And so we got it done. We passed it and it was a lot of obstacles along the way and it became law and wired virtually all the classrooms in America. The point is that started from one amendment. It just demonstrates what you can accomplish if you're willing to work together. Those were the great ideas that get going. And we have good debate and you have an amendment process. Great ideas flow from that. Sometimes it just spawns a great idea. One time with Paul Simon, I'll speak to this on student loans and I was on the budget committee and they proposed a cut. They proposed a cut in student loans of $10 billion. And I was very much opposed to this. And this was back in my first years in the Senate. And so I offered a member on the floor to restore the cuts and I lost. So Paul Simon, who was a liberal Democrat from Illinois, came up to me and said, Olympia, I think we ought to try again another way. And I didn't, and he said, I think that we should go for the total amount and restore the entire amount. And I had done a little bit less, that was the point. And I said, but Paul, you don't usually do it that way. If you didn't get the lesser amount, how do you think the amendment to restore the greater amount is gonna work? He said, well, let's try it. And we did and it worked and we restored the cuts in student loans, which was the last time the student loans were ever cut to that degree. But it just shows you what you can do when you have a normal legislative process and allowing it to flow. It isn't the internal, it's the external. You've got the third party groups who are out there that are fueling and are fueling all the divide because it's big business now. It's in their financial interest to keep the divisions flowing because they make money off of it and perpetuate those divisions, which I happen to think many of which are false. It's not reflecting the core of America, that's for sure. So all I can tell you as young people is you're moving forward in this life. I know that Robert Frost once said that the university is a refuge from hasty judgment, but don't let this be your last, okay? Because it is important for the future of this country. It's been a privilege and an honor to be here tonight with all of you. And I wanna thank you, Dean Collins, again for inviting me to address this audience and to all of you and to the students of the faculty with whom I met. Thank you for the honor and the privilege. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Snow, thank you so much for your remarks this evening. Thank you also for your hard work on these issues that are really critical for our country.