Let's Find Common Ground - Depolarizing America: Finding Common Ground in Congress. Betsy Wright Hawkings and Tamera Luzzatto

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

By almost any measure, Congress is much more rigidly divided along partisan lines than it was 30 years ago. Politicians run nationalized campaigns, not local ones, and frequently demonize the other side. We examine ways to find common ground among lawmakers, and those who work on Capitol Hill, with two deeply experienced Washington insiders. Betsy Wright Hawkings served as chief of staff for four Republican members of Congress over 25 years and helped build bipartisan coalitions on a range of vital issues. She is now Managing Partner of Article One Advisors, a consulting firm focused on giving organizations strategic advice on how Congress functions.  Tamera Luzzatto served as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2009. Before that, she was on the staff of Democratic Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV for 15 years. Today, she is Senior Vice President of government relations at Pew Charitable Trusts.

Today's rigid divisions in Congress reflect the polarization of our democracy. A lot of important issues are decided by party line votes. Politicians increasingly run nationalised campaigns, not ones that focus on local concerns, and they often demonise the other side. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashly Melntite. And I'm Richard Davies. In this episode, we look at ways to find common ground among lawmakers and those who work on Capitol Hill to experience Washington Insiders' join us, and they're also good friends. Betsy Wright Hawking served as Chief of Staff for four Republican members of Congress over 25 years, and helped

build bipartisan coalitions on a range of issues. She's now managing partner of Article I advisors, a consulting firm that gives organizations strategic advice on how Congress functions. And Tamerant Lutzato served as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's Chief of Staff in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2009. Before that, she was on the staff of Democratic Senator J. Rockefeller for 15 years. Today, she is Senior Vice President of Government Relations at Pew Charitable Trusts. Ashley, first question goes to you.

Is Congress today much more divided than it was two or three decades ago, do you think? I would say by almost any metric, Congress is more divided. We do know that many, many decades ago through the civil rights movement and post-reconstruction that there was even violence on the floor of the Congress, not from invaders, but by members themselves. So I think we can measure that by the lack of major legislation being enacted by great deal of polarization, by very few things making it across the finish line called getting to the president's desk

because it's in the form of legislation. Betsy, Congress is design, a representative body. And it reflects the divisions in the country as a whole. And to Tamer's point, there have certainly been at different parts in our history other times when there were deep, deep divisions. But when I think there might not have been the excellence of partisan media, digital media,

in particular, that combined with greater mobility, which might not have existed 160 years ago at the time of the Civil War, have served to enable people to isolate themselves from opposing points of view in a way that they might not have been able to at other times of deep division in our country. And that has just deepened the divide that much more. Tamara, talk a little bit more about how you see Congress today. First of all, my context is having worked for two different senators over 23 years. Progressive senators, but who did not see compromises of word letter word. So Senator Rockefeller going back to 1985 representing West Virginia and some random person named Hillary Clinton that represented

New York. I was with her as her chief of staff for all eight years. Trust in government and our elected leaders started to truly decline. And that would go back, I think, to the Vietnam War and Watergate and Nixon. There have been issues and developments that have caused public to lose faith. So when members feel they don't have the trust, they do stupid things like vote

to veto their pay increase. You don't increase your salary, then you have less means to do what senators when I started in the Senate did. They could afford to live in Washington. So they were one another's neighbors, their spouses knew one another, their soccer together. I think that's one contribution that they're just not around together. I think another trend that has really separated members and caused distrust actually between members and lack of willingness to work together is how much money they have to raise and how much time they spend on fundraising. Campaigns and work-spensives, they're largely conducted through television, which is expensive. I think most members, whenever they're in Washington, senators and members of the house,

breakfast, lunch, evenings, spend on fundraisers, they leave the congressional official buildings and therefore to legally make fundraising calls. It causes them to want to be in Washington as little as possible. It gives them very little time to actually sit through a hearing and learn and spend time with one another. Tamara, do you think diversity might have something to do with these rigid differences? Congress has many more women and people of color today than in the past. Once Congress was a white boys club, did senators and representatives in the past have more in common politically because they felt more alike. I don't think so.

I'd like to offer up another reason, which is since that period of time, we've had an explosion obviously of cable as well as social media, which essentially has siloed citizens. And it's not just members. When you silo citizens, the consequences Americans are getting their news,

so-called news from either Rachel Maddow or Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson and Rachel Maddow are not making a point of having the other point of view shared. So I think this proliferation of different spaces where people can hear a voice and a point of view that they want to hear trickles up to, I would say, more purism because they're not in a venue where they hear true debate, where they hear the other side. I happen to believe that having worked for two progressive senators who got an awful lot done that there is much more in common among Americans out there. The problem is they're filtering

information and points of view through the separate silos. Betsy, you have worked for Republicans. Do you have a similar view? I do. I worked for four Republicans, all of whom represented majority democratic districts. And what that meant was that they had to listen very well to both sides, and they also had to communicate back very well with all sides. Because on any given day, 50% of their constituents might not agree with their vote. But if people felt good about the process, by which they got to the vote and they understood what that process was and they felt that they had been heard, then they

could at least live with the outcome more often than not. And I think, you know, members of Congress do what works. They do what gets them reelected. At the end of the day, they want to be rewarded with that vote. And so they have picked up on what Tamra alluded to, which is the degrading of the respect and trust in government that has certainly existed through my lifetime, through the late 1960s, through the Vietnam era, through the Watergate era and beyond. And members of Congress, as a result, certainly the campaign, the campaign industrial complex

that backs them, you know, have basically run campaigns against the institution. They've run to be in an institution by degrading the institution in which they seek to serve. And so what that means is they've almost created a constituency for their own failure. And so having been elected by saying that Congress is not a worthy institution, in essence, they almost have to prove it once they get there. And so there aren't these incentives to work across the aisle.

And there aren't the same types of incentives to overcome the sort of weaponized partisan information that Tamra refers to. Tamra, what do you think the chances are of finding common ground and passing legislation now Joe Biden's in office? I'm very blessed to work for a nonprofit that pursues trying to create bipartisan champions

for all kinds of public policy changes and reforms and solutions. We're not, it's not very easy right now because of all the forces we've talked about to come up with coalitions for the big problems, a big test will be, will there be an immigration reform, victory, that's a set of complicated factors, but I can tell you that every day I'm part of some quiet, maybe not on the front page of the papers or the lead headline on a network station or Fox or Rachel Maddow, but on a whole range of smaller advances in the public health area, criminal justice reform, conservation, because there are enough members that come to work every day, backed by their staffs, and want to find a partner and know that they have

to create what we call in the language of Congress, enough co-sponsors of a legislative proposal that can therefore win the number of votes to get to the president's desk. I believe that if members, like I believe Biden did as the candidate, tell the public what they want to work on and what they want to get done and why they will attract members of the other party that will in turn feel some public pressure to join them and get something done. Not happening on the bigger issues, but it is in the art of the possible. Yeah, and I think that to Tamers Point, there are two tiers. On the major national

issues that are significant issues for the parties, healthcare might be one. I would say immigration could be another, it has the potential to not be, but so far it has remained there. Members campaign, nationalized campaigns, their party positions, they're not going to find that common ground. But just below that, on issues that are important to their district, for example, flooding that affects military bases might be one, or infrastructure, urban and rural internet access might be another. And that's not going to be an issue where there's likely to be a huge national campaign. But Tamra also said one other thing that I think is important to highlight, which is, campaign, but Tamer also said one other thing that I think is important to highlight, which is, yes, it's really important to tell the American people where you're going to stand,

and I agree with Tamer and the point that she made about President Biden. I would also say it's really important to tell the American people the truth. And when you tell the American people the truth, they will tell you the right thing to do. And I think part of the challenge that we've got, and again, I would say on both sides of the ILS TMR has said, is that the partisan cable news media and digital media have really pushed information that is not based in the truth. And so the American people have a really significant job to sort through what's true and what's not. Is that a problem on both sides? Liberal channels and conservative? Well, I think it is. You know, I think we can all point to examples where

it might have been a little asymmetrical recently, but my experience is that it is. You know, I've been working for members who were among those very few swing districts, I have absolutely experienced campaigns that were not based in the truth leveled at my boss in the pursuit of picking up some of those swing districts. And you know, now we're down to 16 districts that are either represented by Republicans, but were won by a Democrat for president or represented by Democrats, but won't be a Democrat for president or a representative by Democrats, but won by a Republican for president. So really, very few truly swing districts

where the incentive is to tell the truth, where the incentive is to focus on the local issues, and that will supersede these national forces. I just want to pause on that number for a moment. That 16 districts out of 435 in the country. I think my number is right. That is a very small number of truly swing districts. So that statistic alone tells you why there's this siloing effect, not only among consumers, but also

among members of Congress. Yeah, and explains the pressure from the far left and the far right of the role they could play in primaries, which we're seeing in spades right now. And when one is in a position of challenging, we've seen some democratic incumbents go down from, you know, AOC defeated Joe Crowley from that far left end. So what we're seeing both from the far right and far left where the citizens

that maybe are voting for them are getting their information from a far right or far left media outlet or social media, that lends itself to my way or no way. So that's where ideology. You could argue facts and truth, but ideology, it turns into sort of religion. And these extremes of the political spectrum, I think, tended to be more religious and more purest

about what they insist on from the New Green Deal, not making any comment about that, but you could list a bunch of examples from far left. Our guest, Betsy Hawking and Tamra Lutsato. Betsy served as Chief of Staff for four Republicans in Congress. Tamra was Hillary Rodden Clinton's chief of staff when she served as Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. This is Let's Find Common Ground.

I'm Richard. I'm Ashley. More in a minute, but first some good news about our podcast. We've just joined the Democracy Group, a network of more than a minute, but first some good news about our podcast. We've just joined the Democracy Group, a network of more than a dozen podcasts focusing on democracy reform. Find out more at democracygroup.org. And if you want to listen to more of our podcasts, here's another website to remember. Commongroundcommittee.org slash podcasts. Or you can go to where you listen to this show

and look for more. This is our 25th episode. We have several on the theme of depolarizing America. And this is one now back to our interview with Tamara and Betsy. Just getting back to Congress as it is today, do you think new members of Congress are different than more experienced Democrats and Republicans and how they view politics? Do you think they're more ideological or possibly more interested in common ground? I think the pressures that we've talked about are probably increasing the odds that they

will be more ideological and more dogmatic. However, we've had the wave of Democrats that got elected in 18 that included those women. Those women include a group of military CIA members that came out of the different branches of the defense forces, Navy, Army, etc. They are moderate democratic women that are in the trenches to try to find solutions, and they are themselves dealing with the pressures from the other end of their party.

Recently, we spoke to one of them, Abigail Spanberger, formerly at the CIA. And she is a new member, and they're probably them Abigail Spamberger formerly at the CIA and she is a new member and they're probably our Abigail Spamberger's that got elected in this last round Not a lot of them because Democrats didn't much more poorly down ballot than obviously the presidential race came out But I I don't think you can generalize. I think we have waves that sort of explain certain types of new members There are still people running that really want to do a good job and want to get things done and judge themselves that way. And I think, by the way, I would say that staff, from the perspective of staff, are also very important. And the average staff member is only on the hill for less than four years now and only in a position for less than two, which when you think about it

That's less than one house members term. I was going to ask you about staff behind every member of Congress and every senator. There are often many staff members you two come from different parties Tamera lifelong Democrat Bets Betsy, Republican. Is it unusual today to have a friendship like yours among staff members from different parties? I don't think it's unheard of, and I see staff seek it out. And Tamara is actually,

Tamra was a, I'll speak on your behalf, Tamra, helped organize the Senate Chiefs of Staff bipartisan group when she was a Senate Chief and has continued that work at Pew and then organized a similar house group in the last five years where on a bipartisan basis, House Chiefs of Staff get together for purely social, just relationship building.

There's another group that I helped organize, which is Women's Chiefs, on a bipartisan basis. And I will tell you that, you know, the first meeting of that group, we had 10 women chiefs, five from each side of the aisle, only two of them knew each other. One Democrat and one Republican knew each other and they had gathered these other women. And these were women who had been on the hill 10 years or more.

None of them had met each other ever before, except for those two, the one Republican and one Democrat. And five minutes in, I was just standing back watching the conversation happen because they had a lot of common experience and they were really eager to build on it. And since then, I'm aware of many examples. I'm sure Tamra could tell many stories as well

where the relationships built in those environments have actually helped things get done on the floor in committee back in their districts. So I think when given the opportunity, there is a good solid group of staff and members who will take that opportunity. You know, just talking of women because you raised this Betsy, it reminds me, I've read quite a bit about supposedly female politicians on each side being better at bipartisanship than men are. Do you think there's any truth to that? It's absolutely the case. Having been Hillary Clinton's chief of staff for eight years when Senator Barbara McCulsky was the

Zarina, you know, of the women in the Senate and She was able to get the women's senators that increased in number happily in my time in the Senate significantly. I believe they were far more prone to make the time, to spend time together to get to know one another. I recall Hillary Clinton organized a baby shower when then Senator of Texas, K. Bailey Hutchinson adopted a child, and all the women senators held her a shower. Another example is that Sherry Bustos

that has been elected to the House in Illinois in a very red district and just got reelected. I think she might be in her fourth term. She has told me it's just far easier to get the women together, want to get to know one another. Think instinctively they find themselves more comfortable becoming one another support system and support group. How can voters make their voices heard on issues they care about?

So when we're thinking about how people can make a difference, I think the district office is the place to start not just for constituents, but I also think for members. There's a lot of really good work that builds trust that happens in the district and state offices of members of Congress and senators, and particularly during COVID times, members have been, you know, stuck outside the beltway, and while it hasn't helped their relationship building with one another, it has brought some renewed attention to what happens out in the district offices and I think we could build on that to good effect.

Speaking of recent changes, do you think that the utterly shocking events of January the result on the capital is perhaps something that might spark more genuine concern about the need for common ground. Tamara? I wish so. I will share and I think that's enough. I talked about this. What I would hope the outcome of the six would be, would be a true bipartisan commission that we'd be modeled after the 9-11 commission that would come up with recommendations related to security, the intelligence system for passing on threats, maybe related to voting system, but I'm afraid that those events, I think, caused the raise suspicion of other sides. You know, we had some very, very, very strident members that questioned the electoral count. And I don't think, I think staff probably who felt united in how threatened they were,

but I'd like to be hopeful that I don't think that's gonna be an outcome. I think a very objective commission that would be again modeled after 9-11 could contribute to such outcomes. No, that's right. And I mean, Tamara being Senator Clinton's chief of staff during September 11th in the aftermath, I having been Congressman Shae's chief of staff where we lost 81 constituents

from the Southwest corner of Connecticut. You just say that Congressman Shae's was a Republican? Yes, yes, he, still actually. And, and so we sort of worked, I mean, both Senator Clinton and Congressman Shays in different ways worked to support the efforts of those statesmen and women who were on the commission and who were so dedicated to getting it right and to keeping it bipartisan. Tamara, as we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to say about bipartisanship and finding common ground? I think I would just say that I would encourage everyone and certainly this common ground organization is doing this to applaud and praise and highlight and tell the stories of when bipartisanship takes place.

I think there is too much despair that the media will not cover in my days when Ted Kennedy partnered with Orrin Hatch, a very conservative senator. He Kennedy being a very liberal senator to bring about universal coverage for poor children. Again, the headlines aren't full of those examples, but we need more people to tell the stories of when people are working together, and members need to tell their own stories. I think they do themselves a real disservice to not even brag about getting

something done because they work with somebody else. I have a final question, and that is you are both passionate about democracy and about the role of Congress. Are you hopeful that things will be better in the near or longer term future? I am hopeful. I mean, I don't think I could have stayed in this city for as long as I have and not be hopeful because otherwise it would just be the short answers. Yes, I'm hopeful. And one of the other things that makes me hopeful is, and this has been true over the 30 plus years that I've been on the hill or working near the hill. Every day you meet another dynamic smart person who has come to Washington to try to make the world a better place. There is a almost never ending stream of those people.

And there are times when I've been less hopeful and more hopeful. But, and I will say, I think the president is setting a really important example in this regard. I think he has, I might not agree with him on every issue, but I absolutely am grateful for his servant's heart. And I think that he is working hard to build an administration of younger leaders that will be able to carry that servant leadership forward and will try to set an example on both sides of the aisle and I see people on both sides of the aisle coming to the city to try to

make the world a better place. Timer? Yes, I certainly have as Hillary once said, plenty of scars to prove my despair over losses or failed attempts. But to go back to one of your questions about what came out of the sex, I have to believe that that has inspired some people to cry harder, to bring people together and to unify.

And certainly that was Biden's thing. And I think he's having some influence. So I couldn't get up if I weren't helpful. I have a job that, hopefully, I think I'm helpful. But my personal way is all about trying to create bipartisan coalitions. And I see many examples. So I know it's in the art of the possible.

It's just we need more people to specialize in that art and that science, because it's both. Tamara and Betsy, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Pleasure, nice to see both of you, all of you. Tamara Lutzato and Betsy Hawkins. This is Let's Find Common Ground. Our podcast is produced for Common Ground Committee.

I'm Ashley Maltight. And I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.