[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S580-S581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  BIPARTISANSHIP IN THE 105TH CONGRESS

  Mr. LEAHY. I just have heard so much, Mr. President, about a desire 
to return to less partisanship and more comity at both ends of 
Pennsylvania Avenue. I hope that might happen for the sake of this 
country.
  I go back to an experience my father used to tell me about when I was 
a child. It was in 1936. I was not yet alive. But my father was born, 
raised in Vermont. At that time it was probably the most Republican 
State in the Union, one of only two States, for example, that voted for 
Alf Landon in the Franklin Roosevelt landslide.
  President Franklin Roosevelt came to Vermont in 1936, actually August 
1, 1936. He went in an open car down State Street in Montpelier. The 
National Life Insurance Building had its headquarters at that time 
there. My family had their home almost across the street where they had 
the Leahy Press. My father, who was probably the only Democrat in 
Montpelier at the time, was standing in front of the National Life 
Building.
  You must understand, National Life was sort of an adjunct to the 
Republican Party. They would determine, along with a couple other 
companies, who would be Governor this year to the next year and the 
next year at a time when we were solely a one-party State. I must say, 
as a Democrat I will have to admit they came up with some pretty good 
Governors too, but very, very much a Republican hierarchy place.
  As the car went by, the President of the National Life took off his 
hat, stood at attention holding it over his heart. My father, standing 
next to him, said, ``I never thought I'd see the day that you would 
take off your hat to Franklin Roosevelt.''
  He turned to my father and said, ``Howard, I didn't take off my hat 
to Franklin Roosevelt. I took off my hat for the President of the 
United States of America.'' My father told me that story so many times 
growing up, and I had met the man who did that and I knew the facts of 
it. I recounted the story to a number of people, people writing books 
or speaking on this, as an example of a different era. Now, this man 
would never have voted for Franklin Roosevelt. He would have supported 
whoever ran against him, but he respected the office of the Presidency, 
as he respected the office of the Congress.
  I hope, Mr. President, that all of us who serve in the Congress, in 
both parties, would stop trying to figure out how best to tear down 
these institutions. We are the most powerful democracy history has ever 
known. We are the only superpower in the world today. That brings with 
it certain responsibilities--to stay both a democracy and so powerful a 
country. We did it because of the genius of our three-part Government--
the executive branch, legislative branch, and the judicial branch.
  In recent years, with both Democrat and Republican Presidents, it has 
become a sport in this Nation to find every conceivable way to tear 
them down no matter what they do. I would ask myself and the public, is 
it conceivable that any person, man or woman, Democrat or Republican, 
could ever, anywhere in this Nation of 260 million people, reach the 
level of virtue and be the paragon that we seem to insist our President 
should be? If so, then that person is not a representative of 260 
million Americans. But we try every which way to diminish the power of 
the Presidency, the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. In the 
Senate and in the House we do it to ourselves, so that, again, the 
respect of the Nation is diminished. Now we see more and more attempts 
to do it to the judiciary.
  Mr. President, let us stop and think. If we destroy, either by our 
actions or others', the respect that these institutions of Government 
must have, how long do we remain a democracy and how long before the 
checks and balances that have been so carefully built up, and built up 
based on the trust of the American people, how long before that trust 
is destroyed, the checks and balances fail, and suddenly you have an 
opening for a person on horseback to come in and take over the reins of 
power of the last great nuclear superpower, with the largest economy in 
the world, the most powerful nation on Earth, a nation that can justify 
its power and its position in this world only if it remains a 
democracy, only if it represents its own people, only if the reins of 
power maintain the respect of the people.
  So I go back to that August day in Montpelier, VT, when that man was 
holding his hat over his heart as President Roosevelt went by, and as 
my father, a loyal long-time Democrat, may God rest his soul, took his 
hat off and held it over his heart when President Eisenhower honored 
the State of Vermont and drove through, and as I did, as a young 
prosecutor, for President Johnson and President Nixon and President 
Bush and President Clinton, stand at attention, thinking how honored 
our State was that they came and brought with them the symbols of the 
office of the Presidency.
  Let us try. It is difficult in the time of the 30-second sound bites 
and special interest groups on the right and left. It is difficult when 
partisan feelings run high. But let us step back and say: Respect this 
country; respect the institutions; respect the integrity and the 
independence of our judiciary; respect the good will and patriotism of 
the men and women who have the opportunity to serve in the U.S. Senate 
and the House of Representatives; respect the fact that we, as a 
Nation, elect our President, a President who constitutionally can serve 
only 4 years at a time and no more than 8; respect the fact that we 
have those checks and balances. Maybe we ought to work at making 
Government work and earn the respect of our people and not try in so 
many ways to tear Government apart.
  Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Iowa for his courtesy, and 
I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from Iowa 
if he

[[Page S581]]

would have any objection if I continue on another matter, with the 
understanding that, of course, I will yield the floor when one of his 
speakers comes on the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. No objection, assuming that if some of my cosponsors 
come to the floor, he will yield to me.
  Mr. LEAHY. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

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