American Thought Leaders - Reclaiming the Middle Ground: Jill Long Thompson’s Vision for a More Collaborative Congress
Episode Date: September 20, 2024“We need more members of Congress who recognize that there’s value on both sides,” says Jill Long Thompson, a former U.S. congresswoman from Indiana who served in the 1990s. As a Democrat, she r...epresented a heavily Republican district as a fiscal conservative.She says that today, polarization and gerrymandering—the redrawing of district lines for partisan benefit—have made people like her few and far between in Congress.“We are electing people who are either further to the right or further to the left,” she says.In this episode, Thompson makes the case for a return to bipartisan cooperation and civil discussion across the political divide. She’s the editor of and a contributor to the new book “Across the Aisle: Why Bipartisanship Works for America.” It features essays from a number of current and former members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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Is bipartisanship dead?
A lot of Americans seem to think Congress is heading in that direction.
We need more members of Congress who recognize that there's value on both sides.
Jill Long-Thompson, a former U.S. Congresswoman from Indiana who served in the 1990s,
makes the case for a return to bipartisan cooperation and civil discussion across the political aisle.
We are electing people who are either further to the right or further to the left.
Gerrymandering is a real issue for us that needs to be addressed.
She's the editor of the new book, Across the Aisle, Why Bipartisanship Works for America.
It features essays from a number of current and former members of Congress,
both Republican and Democrat.
It is very natural for us to look for things that confirm what we already believe or what
we want to believe. But in the long run, we're all better off if we tell ourselves the truth
as well as tell others the truth.
This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek.
Jill Long-Thompson, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
So your book begins with two people from the opposite sides of the aisle,
Senate Majority Leader for the Republicans, Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats,
writing an essay together. And they're saying that Congress isn't working as it should.
So tell me about that. I think there is reason for concern that in the Congress, but more broadly across the country,
that people are not working together.
And for democracy to work, for a representative democracy to work, whatever form of democracy. The process by which we adopt legislation and
execute legislation, it has to be inclusive. That's what a democratic system is all about.
And we all have a responsibility in making democracy work.
I hear a lot that Congress isn't really working for us right now.
So how did this happen?
I think one of the challenges we face is that we are going through a transformation, if
you will, in how people receive information with the reduction in the number of independent
local news outlets.
And many people are getting their information from social media platforms.
And you don't have the same standard of accountability, as you know, from the work that you do.
Independent media have, legitimate independent media have rules about how they cover stories and the stories that they cover.
But many people are getting their information
from Facebook or from X or from some other platform.
And the person who is posting the information
may have an ax to grind or an agenda to promote.
It's not independent reporting.
And we need to work through this.
I am old enough to remember when President John Kennedy was running for office
and how television was playing a much bigger role than it had in previous election cycles.
And there was concern that leaders who would be very effective, but maybe who weren't so photogenic
on camera, would be passed over for someone who wouldn't be as effective as a leader,
but was good looking on camera. And we've worked through so many of these kinds of issues. But I
do think that independent journalism is critical to the democratic process.
I want to talk a little bit about someone I've been reading quite a bit lately. Andre
Meir is a Manhattan Institute scholar who has written about how media, the way they
work today, he would argue, is inherently polarizing. This is across some of the biggest media as well,
because what is the business model that works? Well, the business model that works,
it would seem, is one where I give someone information, and if they react to that,
have a strong reaction to that sometimes, maybe are even incited by that, confirm some of their ideas, then they will get by the subscription. And so if you play that out
over time, you can end up with quite a polarized climate and there's this
incentive to give people what they want, not necessarily sort of the objective picture of reality.
So your thoughts. That is a challenge. And I think that as we revise K through 12 curricula
and higher education curricula, I think that we need to include information literacy, how to evaluate what you are reading or what you are
seeing, and also tie that to the importance of being a responsible citizen in a democracy,
that we not only have to be looking for information, we have to be looking for
accurate information. It is human nature. My major field of study in
my doctoral program was consumer economics. And it is very natural for us to look for things that
confirm what we already believe or what we want to believe. But in the long run, we're all better off
if we tell ourselves the truth as well as tell others the truth. I do think information literacy is something that needs to be included in K-12 education
as well as in higher education.
Give me a bit of a picture of how you came to be elected and thinking about these things
so deeply.
Well, not to belabor the issue, but when I was six and I would come home from school,
we were given a choice.
My mother would go out and register voters in that election year, and my dad would milk
the cows.
And they asked us which we wanted to do.
Did we want to go with mom or did we want to go with dad?
My brother chose to go to the barn and help my dad milk the cows, and he became a very good dairy farmer.
I went with my mother to register voters,
and then a number of years later,
when I was in graduate school at Indiana University,
it was in the late 1970s,
and we had double-digit inflation,
and we were in a recession,
and I would listen to politicians talk about the economy and
I realized that with the opportunities I had had at Valparaiso University where we are
today and also at Indiana University that I actually had a better understanding of macroeconomics
than many of the leaders in our country who were talking about the economy. And I thought, well, maybe I should use my degree
to advance good policy rather than to make money.
And that was just a very significant time in my life.
And I made the decision that I would pursue a career
in academia, but also look at opportunities
for serving in public office. And the first
office that I ran for was for city council here in Valparaiso. And I was elected in my early 30s
to serve on the city council here. And I really liked working with people, finding solutions to
the challenges that we faced here in Valpo. So you're now in city council and it's natural,
you have to run for statewide office or what happens?
Well, I decided that I really liked the policy challenges at the federal level,
and that's when I decided that I would run for Congress.
And I had some opportunities when I was running for Congress,
our candidate for the United States Senate
dropped out of the race.
I think had a health issue that he felt he needed to address.
And the state party endorsed me to,
before the primary election, endorsed me as a candidate.
And so I was, that was 1986,
and I ran actually against 2B, Vice President
Dan Quayle for the United States Senate. And I didn't win that race, obviously. But it
was an opportunity to get to know people across the state of Indiana. And I really grew in
my appreciation for the talent and the ability that we have as a state.
And I began to see that when it was just like working on the farm and working with our neighbors.
If you work together, you find workable solutions to move your community forward, your state
forward and your country forward.
So give me an example from your own time in Congress
where you really needed to make bipartisanship work.
I felt like I needed to do that every day.
I am a Democrat and I represented one
of the most Republican districts in the country.
I'm also a fiscal conservative.
I think that came from growing up on a farm
and watching my parents manage the family business.
And so for me, it was about good policy,
and I even took the No New Tax Pledge as a member of Congress,
and there were some in my party that didn't like that I did that,
but I really felt at the time that we needed to get spending issues addressed
and we needed to do a better job of analyzing
what we were getting for our dollar, if you will.
And so it just, from a business standpoint,
if you're not getting a return,
and it can be a social return, it can be national defense.
I actually think national defense is very tied to the social well-being of our citizenry.
And it all just kind of meshed, if you will.
And not unlike what you study in macroeconomics or consumer economics, you start to see how the long-term outcome is determined by how strong,
how good your decisions are from the get-go. And I made sure that when I had advisory committees
that would advise me on issues, whether it was agriculture or business or education or healthcare,
that there was, if you will, political diversity
among those who were advising me. And actually, not only did we find that we were learning from
each other, but we also learned that we were in much more agreement than we were in disagreement.
I served on the House Agriculture Committee, and the differences that we had between were based on
geography more than on politics so if you were from the south the crops that
you grow in the south cotton rice sugar although we have we have beet sugar in
in northern states as well but you're going to agree with anybody as long as they understood agriculture in your community.
And so it was just very common for Democrats and Republicans to work together on policy.
Somehow things have changed a bit.
In your book, you talk a little bit about how
the advent of cheaper air flight, for example, actually significantly changed things because
people could easily go back to their constituencies and to their districts.
And it seems to make sense too, because they're responsible to those districts or states.
But that actually created another difficulty, which is people weren't getting to know each other as well. Yes. But I think that gerrymandering is a real issue for us that needs to be addressed
because we are electing people who are either further to the right or further to the left.
And I think we need more members of Congress who recognize that there's value on both sides,
that being fiscally conservative does not have to be a Democrat or Republican issue.
Being responsible with tax dollars that are being provided by the people across this country,
that's a responsibility that we all have.
Drawing congressional lines so that you have safe Republican
and safe Democrat districts, I think that we end up
electing people who are really not
that interested in the middle.
Your book is a plea to work across the aisle. When I look at Congress right now,
there's maybe one or two actually quite important areas where there is bipartisanship,
but a lot of people are wondering, is bipartisanship just over now?
I don't think it's over.
This country has been through some very rough times,
and we could go back to the Civil War, for example.
I mean, that was horrible.
I think we're going through a rough time,
and I think that we will find solutions,
but we all have to recognize what democracy is.
And it's again, we have equal rights and we have equal opportunity to participate in the
political process.
And we need to respect one another.
And if you are fortunate enough to live in a democratic society, you have to take those responsibilities seriously.
And just because you're on social media doesn't mean that you should be able to say something that's rude or disrespectful.
And we will get much further and we'll get there faster if we take into account the importance of respecting everyone in our democratic process.
We don't have to agree, but they have a right to express their opinion
just as I have a right to express mine.
What about the forces that aren't interested in common ground?
Well, then those of us who are, we just have to work that much harder.
That's just the way it is.
I mean, it's like being a member of a family and somebody in the family is misbehaving.
We just all have to do our best.
But we need to all be talking about it and we also need to all be reaching across the
aisle, if you will, in our communities.
And I have friends on both sides of the aisle, and we have discussions and we disagree.
I had a discussion with a neighbor the other day.
He was wearing a cap that was disrespectful to my political party,
and he ended up telling me, I love you, when we talked about it.
And it's how we talk, it's not just what we say,
but it's how we approach our neighbors and our friends.
Well, and this is incredibly important,
what you just mentioned, okay?
Because there's a sense not just among the politicians,
but I've talked to multiple people who truly believe
there's some sort of divide to their fellow American
that might be wearing the disrespectful hat,
that there isn't common ground to be found.
They've come to believe that.
And that's why those of us who believe there is common ground,
but it's probably as much an issue of communication.
I have a neighbor who has told me things that he's read or seen on a social media platform that are completely false.
And I will provide him with valid information.
And he's glad to get it.
But I do it respectfully because I genuinely respect him.
And I think we need to realize how important everyone is and how important their feelings are.
Well, I'm going to mention this very quickly. Often when I talk about democracy on these shows, some of the conservative viewers will
say Jan, it's a constitutional republic.
Remember that, right?
There's all sorts of democracies out there.
This is a constitutional republic.
And of course, that's true.
When you say democracy, you're talking about the American version, right?
Yes.
As you know, I published, I had another book published, The Character of American Democracy.
And this is a democracy,
whether you want to acknowledge that or not,
it's a representative democracy, but that's a democracy.
It would be like saying, well,
if it's not a gasoline engine in a car, it's not a car.
Well, no, it's an electric car.
And so it's a type of democracy that I think makes sense back to the issue of being informed. As citizenry, if we spent all day long
studying issues, we still wouldn't have the information that we need to make the best
decisions on policy. And so electing somebody
to represent us makes considerably more sense and you're going to get better decision making
if you elect good people who understand what it means to live in a democracy and to serve
in a democracy.
One of the early chapters in your book actually is Senator Todd Young, also from Indiana.
Yes, someone I admire greatly.
Absolutely. He was instrumental in seeing the CHIPS Act passed on one of the rare bipartisan
issues, which is the communist China threat, in this case from the manufacturing side of things,
actually also obviously also national security side of things. I think that Senator Todd Young, and I think some of this comes from his military
background, but probably more of it comes from his family's background, if you will.
He is the kind of leader that I see puts the country first. And not everybody does that. And he's clearly more interested in making
the country stronger and not doing something that would weaken us as a country economically
or in national security or in any way. He and I don't agree on a number of issues,
but he is someone that I feel we can trust he he will tell you what
he's going to do and then he does it and he shows respect for those that disagree
with him and that he disagrees with and that's what democracy is all about it's
not unlike a family we don't always agree with everything that other family
members believe or want to do yet we get much further and we're much stronger
when we work together and listen to each other and we learn.
Research shows that the most successful legislators in getting legislation passed and signed into
law do so by reaching across the aisle and they conduct business in a bipartisan way.
And it just truly makes sense.
You learn every time you talk to somebody who has different experiences than your own.
Research by McKinsey shows that in corporations, those corporations that have leadership that
is diverse ethnically, racially, in gender, that they outperform other businesses that don't
have that diversity.
They perform better financially.
When we talk to people who have a different life than the kind of life that we live, and
we listen to them and we show respect, we learn something.
We become smarter, if you will.
I have been around a few years and I want to,
for the rest of my life, have opportunities
to talk to people who disagree with me
so I can continue to learn.
Let's talk a little bit about bipartisanship
where maybe it can go wrong.
So I'll explain why I'm saying this. I was just looking
at the jobs number update recently, and that's almost 820,000 jobs, turns out never existed.
And then there's also these, what you could call phantom companies that ostensibly propped these jobs up. That's a massive change.
The implication is, by one of our columnists, is that probably we may really be in a quite
significant recession given this new update of numbers. And at the same time, there seems to
be a kind of bipartisan agreement that we should keep running these huge deficits. And it doesn't take a
rocket scientist to understand there's a limit to how much you can do that. At some point,
you fall off the cliff, the question is, there doesn't seem to be a serious interest in
dealing with this in a bipartisan way. Yes. Let's go back to gerrymandering where you have safe congressional
districts why do you why do you compromise or make compromises if it really doesn't matter
whether or not you will be re-elected and i think all of these things are intertwined. I remember when President Clinton put together a budget that was balanced.
I could not support it because I had taken a no-tax pledge, and it did have tax increases
in it, but it also balanced the budget.
And I really felt uncomfortable that I couldn't vote for it because I thought it would be
good for the country.
At the same time, I don't think that you should promise something to your constituents and then
not keep your promise, because that undermines the credibility of the process, and it causes
people to lose trust. And I thought keeping my word took priority over supporting the legislation
that I once it was finalized that I thought
was actually good that that was a very very difficult time for me but I think
that that we really need to have greater balance in the the congressional
districts so that the people that were sending to serve in the US House are
going to pay
attention to both Democrats and Republicans and also to independents, to libertarians.
We have to listen to one another and recognize that we don't have all the answers.
I hadn't really thought through deeply the implications of having
these districts gerrymandered as a kind of the way things are done today.
You would advocate for instituting policies in Congress that demand that you have people
of different perspectives included in districts, I suppose at every particular scale, right?
Well, what I believe would be very useful would be having congressional districts
drawn in each state by independent commissions
rather than by politicians who are elected to office.
And that you would have,
the commission would be made up of membership
that is balanced politically.
I think that's what we need.
And that's not the only thing,
that won't solve every problem,
but I think that would be a very important,
a very positive change for us.
What other corrections could be made here?
I think we need to look at how we're financing campaigns.
And the challenge is, of course, making sure that we don't do anything
to undermine our right to freedom of expression.
And if you want to put money into something that as long as you're reporting it and the public
has access to know, has the access so that they can learn who is funding different movements,
different political candidates, I think we do need to strengthen our laws regarding how
we fund campaigns and what information has to be made available to the public.
But then we also have to make sure that people have good media
opportunities to find out that information, to find that information, if you will.
One of the authors in the book talks a lot about this and specifically, of course, the implications of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which kind of opened up the floodgates of corporate money.
And then there's this other element where instead of focusing on representing the constituents,
the members are basically spending so much of their time fundraising. And in fact,
even committee, how you're appointed on committees is determined by how well you can raise money.
And that seems like a different sort of skill set than being effectively representing a
congressional district, for example, or state. We might be able to do it through incentives
as opposed, because it is very important
to protect the constitutional right of freedom of expression.
And we have to be very careful about not
not limiting that.
But I do think that that there are incentives
that you can provide, funding incentives that would make it very clear to the voters who's acting in their best interest versus who's acting in the interest of getting more money for their campaigns.
But it really has become unwieldy. And that Supreme Court ruling, I'm not a lawyer,
and so I don't want to make a judgment
regarding that decision in the context
of the First Amendment.
But I do think that we need to, at the very least,
encourage less big spending,
especially by individuals and corporations and organizations,
and also that we make sure that everything is transparent so the public can see who's funding
what candidates. And you can look that up, but it takes a long time to do it. And that's why we need
an independent media where people do that as part of their work
and make that available to the public. One of the things that I keep thinking about,
and you, of course, do talk about this in your book as well, that for this all to work,
for the American democracy to work, you need an informed citizenry who appreciates
how the system works, participates in the system.
And certainly the research that I've seen up to now suggests that things are really going in the opposite direction on that front.
And so you can't help but wonder how can this work if there isn't that level of civics education or even an interest in that?
We have to just keep working at it.
And those of us who really believe in this country, and we are participants because we
believe in the country more than because of something that we personally want.
There are organizations like Common Cause, for example.
There are news media like the Epoch Times we need to make
sure that we're getting the word out there to as many people as we can it's
not going to be simple it just isn't but it's worth the effort no I mean
absolutely and you know one thing that's very interesting, sometimes when you look
from the outside a bit, you can see the value bar. I'm Canadian, and I appreciate—
But you love this country. Well, I deeply love this country.
As I've said before, I'm a rare Canadian-American exceptionalist. Having worked on the China human rights space, for example,
having worked in all sorts of places around the world,
it's easy to not realize what you have,
and you take for granted what you have,
and how unique, having been learning about the American system,
the uniqueness, even compared to the Canadian parliamentary democracy, the special protections that exist from the tyranny of the majority,
if you will, so to speak, in the American system that are pretty unique. It's amazing,
and the innovation that the American system fosters, created in society. Again,
you can lose sight of that.
This is one of the things I want to try to kind of transmit to Americans.
It's like, hey, you have something really incredible and precious,
and it does absolutely require working with the people you're a bit suspicious of.
An analogy that I like to use, and I referenced this a little earlier today,
is that it's not
unlike making a family work if you will and and keeping people healthy as
healthy as possible given all of the challenges but the families that that
are able to work together and respect one another and listen to what others have to say.
I think that you can say the same thing for a democratic government, and that's that we
need to care about one another.
Principles of character, pillars of character include trustworthiness, and this is universal around the world, trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, caring.
And if we care about our neighbors, if we respect our neighbors,
we don't have to respect every decision they make,
but we need to respect them as people, as our neighbors.
We need to care about everyone.
My dad had a saying that has stayed with
me my entire life, and that is, you never know what someone else is going through. And so it's
important to always try to be understanding and show respect for them so that it will help their
day go better. And we need to do that just in our personal lives, but in democracy, it's also critical.
We need to do that.
How do you deal with the situation
where people might just have bad information?
When someone has bad information,
we should not ridicule them for that information.
We should listen to what they say bad information, we should not ridicule them for that information.
We should listen to what they say and then provide them with better information,
better documentation, a more valid source of information.
Democracy depends upon us getting good information to people
and doing our best to have the facts.
If we misstate something, acknowledge that we misstated it, and we will just get so much
further in the long run.
It's not always comfortable when we misunderstand something.
But if we are respectful to others, there's a greater chance that they will be respectful
of us.
And we can set that tone.
Each of us can be a part of that.
Well, Jill, I've really enjoyed this conversation with you.
A final thought as we finish?
Well, I've enjoyed this as well.
And I think to wrap it up, if that's what we're doing, I would say that when someone is saying something that you really disagree with and that you really find unacceptable, you have a choice.
You can respond in kind and be also disrespectful. On the other hand, you could be very thoughtful and kind and understanding.
And the probability of having a real discussion gets better
if we do that in our lives with our neighbors and our colleagues.
And we set a good example for those who are representing us in Congress
and in other public office, I think we will be a much stronger country, a much stronger democracy,
and I think we will all have a better life than we would if we didn't do that.
Well, Jill Long-Thompson, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. It's an honor and a pleasure. Thank you. And I'm very, very honored that you are
interested in the book and also glad that you are interested in these issues. It's
so important to our country. Thank you. Thank you all for joining Congresswoman
Jill Long-Thompson and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.