[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 9-11]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           THE 107TH CONGRESS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, 213 years ago, the Framers of the 
Constitution created the United States Senate.
  In all the years since then, only 1,864 Americans have been granted 
the privilege of serving in this extraordinary body; and that includes 
the new Senators we welcome today.
  For every Senator, whether serving in the 18th Century or the 21st, 
whether beginning one's first term, or--like Senator Byrd--one's 
eighth, the opening of a new Congress has always been a time of great 
hope. This Congress is no exception.
  We have important work ahead of us. We also have--within us--
everything we need to do that work wisely and well--if we choose to do 
so.
  Never before has America had a 50/50 Senate. Thirty-one State 
legislatures have dealt creatively with this challenge in the last 30 
years, but no U.S. Senate has ever been divided exactly in half.
  An even split does not necessitate political gridlock--as these 
States have demonstrated--but does require bipartisanship.
  Senate Lott and I have had a number of discussions over the past 
weeks about how to organize this Congress so that it is both 
representative and productive. Our conversations have been friendly and 
constructive, and they are continuing. It is my hope that we will have 
a plan soon that our fellow Senators, and our fellow Americans, will 
agree is workable and fair.
  Another reason this Senate is historic is because it includes--I'm 
happy to note--a record number of women. Of the 11 new Senators who 
join us today, 4 are women. In all, there are now 13 women in this 
Senate--the most women ever to serve in the Senate at the same time. I 
am especially proud that 10 of those women are Democrats. In fact, 
there are more women Senators in our caucus this year than there were 
in the entire Senate last year. That is good news, for women, for 
families, and for this institution.
  There is one more reason this Senate is historic and that is, the 
extraordinary events that occurred between the election and today.
  This last Presidential election tested the patience of our people and 
the strength of our institutions like no other election in our 
lifetime. It was a difficult time for all Americans. But throughout 
those 5 long weeks of uncertainty--from election night until the 
Supreme Court decision--the American people remained confident that our 
system of government was strong enough to withstand the test of a 
contested Presidential election. They continued to believe that we 
could resolve the uncertainty, and move on. The challenge for this 
Congress, and this Senate, is to prove worthy of that faith. I am 
hopeful we can.
  Now, we have a President-elect. His administration is taking shape. 
In just over 2 weeks, George W. Bush will become our President.
  I speak for all my colleagues on this side of the aisle when I say we 
are ready to work in good faith with our Republican friends and with 
President-elect Bush and his administration to find bipartisan 
solutions to the challenges facing our Nation. As I have said before: 
Bipartisanship is not an option. If we are going to do the work here in 
the appropriate way, as we have been sent here to do, it is now a 
requirement.
  Unfortunately, not everyone understands or accepts that fact. A 
couple of weeks ago, I read a column by a well-known syndicated 
political pundit. The headline read: ``Beware the bipartisanship.''
  The next day, there was another column. It had a different author, 
but the sentiment was the same. The headline on that one read: 
``Bipartisan blather.''
  The writer of the first column said bipartisanship amounted to 
``betrayal'' of one's principles and supporters.
  The author of the second column was even more succinct and scathing. 
He called it, bipartisanship, an ``instrument of emasculation.''
  Both of these men are good writers. They are on talk shows all the 
time. But they are not--as Teddy Roosevelt put it--``in the arena.'' 
They have not answered a call to public service, as we have. They 
didn't look people in the eyes and tell them: ``If you'll vote for me, 
I promise you I will do my level best in the Senate, to pay down the 
national debt, or create an affordable prescription drug benefit'', or 
do any of the other things we told people back home we would try to do.
  They are clever writers, but they did not take an oath to serve their 
Nation. We have.
  We need to use our cleverness to find the bipartisan solutions that 
evaded the last Congress. We need to show the American people that 
their faith in our system of government was not misplaced. And I 
believe we can.
  After reading those negative views of bipartisanship, I decided I 
needed a different perspective, so I reread all seven of the speeches 
from the leader's lecture series.
  For those who may not be familiar with it, the leader's lecture 
series is the most extraordinary lecture series in the city.
  I commend my friend, Senator Lott, whose idea it was.
  Shortly after he became majority leader, he decided that we ought to 
take advantage of the unusual--perhaps unprecedented--fact that so many 
former Senate leaders were still alive. As he put it, we ought to find 
a way to share with the Nation ``the wisdom and insights that can be 
gained only by a lifetime of service to free people.''
  The lectures all take place in the majestic Old Senate Chamber, where 
Clay and Webster debated the great issues of their day.
  Over nearly 3 years, we have heard candid recollections and sage 
advice from seven remarkable leaders. As we begin this new Congress, I 
thought it might be instructive to listen again to what they had to say 
about what works in the Senate and what this Senate is all about.
  Mike Mansfield was majority leader from 1959 to 1969. He was also 
Ambassador to Japan under both parties.
  In the end, he said, the Senate can only function ``if there is a 
high degree of accommodation, mutual restraint, and a measure of 
courage--in spite of our weaknesses--in all of us.''
  Howard Baker is a friend to many of us. He was the Senate majority 
leader during the Reagan administration and later served as President 
Reagan's chief of staff.
  He said that our ability to settle matters of national importance 
peacefully and honorably in this Chamber is one of the things that sets 
this Nation apart from so many others.
  He offered what he called a ``Baker's Dozen Rules for Senate 
Leadership.''

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  Among his rules: ``Have a genuine respect for differing points of 
view. Remember that every Senator is an individual, with individual 
needs, ambitions and political conditions. Also remember that even 
members of the opposition party are susceptible to persuasion and 
redemption on a surprising number of issues.''
  The third speaker in the series was Robert C. Byrd, the only one of 
the seven with whom we still have the good fortune to work and learn 
from nearly every day.
  In his more than 40 years in this body, Senator Byrd has served as 
both majority and minority leader, as President pro tempore, and as 
chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
  In his typically wise lecture, he reminded us that our founders 
``were pragmatists, rather than idealists,'' and that this Senate is 
itself the result of a compromise, the Great Compromise of July 16, 
1787.
  He went on to say: ``Political polarization . . . is not now, and 
never has been, a good thing for the Senate.
  ``I am talking about politics when it becomes gamesmanship or mean-
spirited, or when it becomes overly manipulative, simply to gain 
advantage. I am not talking about honestly held views or differing 
political positions. Those things enrich our system.
  ``Americans,'' he said, ``have always loved a good debate. And that 
is what I believe they wish for now: more substantive and stimulating 
debate, and less pure politics and imagery.''
  I couldn't agree more.
  President Bush--the first President Bush--said two of the most 
important legislative accomplishments during his Presidency were, 
first, the Clean Air Act, which passed as a result of the extraordinary 
combined efforts of President Bush and George Mitchell; and second, the 
Americans with Disabilities Act, whose two strongest champions in this 
body were Bob Dole and Tom Harkin.
  He described both measures as ``landmark pieces of legislation that 
became a reality only after the White House and the Senate demonstrated 
bipartisanship and compromise.''
  George Mitchell, my friend and immediate predecessor as Democratic 
leader, recalled the 3\1/2\ years he spent chairing the Northern 
Ireland peace negotiations after leaving the Senate.
  Frequently during those negotiations, he said, one party would plead 
with him to limit debate by the other parties.
  He never would, explaining: ``I got my training in the United States 
Senate.''
  After 3\1/2\ years of talking, the parties reached an agreement to 
end a conflict that had gone on for hundreds of years.
  Senator Mitchell said he is often asked whether there are common 
lessons that can be drawn from his experience in this Senate and at the 
peace table in Belfast.
  Yes, he said. And among the most important is this:
  ``There is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended. Conflicts 
are created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human 
beings.''
  That is a lesson worth remembering as this new Congress begins.
  The sixth speaker in the leader's lecture series is also a friend to 
many of us--a man to whom I owe a personal debt of gratitude and for 
whom I have the greatest respect: Robert J. Dole.
  For 18 months, he and I served as leaders of our parties.
  That was 6 years ago. My party had just done the unthinkable. We had 
lost the majority in both the House and the Senate. Not only was 
Senator Dole now the majority leader--a position I had hoped to hold--
but it was also widely assumed that he would run against a Democratic 
President the next year.
  We could have had a terrible relationship. The fact that we did not 
was due to Senator Dole's love of this body and this Nation, and to his 
fundamental sense of fairness and decency.
  He served as Republican leader for 11 years--longer than any 
Republican in history. In all, he spent 10,000 days in this Senate. Of 
those 10,000 days, he said, a few stood out especially vividly.
  One day that stood out, he said, was when he invited former Senator 
George McGovern to join the congressional delegation attending the 
funeral of former First Lady Pat Nixon:

       (A) reporter asked George why he should honor the wife of a 
     man with whom he had waged a bitter battle for the White 
     House. Senator McGovern replied: ``You can't keep on 
     campaigning forever.'' And George was right.

  It seems to me that is another lesson worth remembering as this 
Congress begins.
  The seventh speaker, former Vice President Dan Quayle, recalled as 
one of his proudest achievements in the Senate was working with Ted 
Kennedy to strengthen America's job-training programs in the early 
1980s.
  He also said that people often ask him how being Vice President 
compares with being a Senator.
  He tells them: ``When you are Vice President, it is always impressed 
on you that you are No. 2 . . .''
  But ``when you are a Senator, you are your own person. You have real 
autonomy. You make independent decisions . . . You are, in a way, an 
independent conscience in this institution.
  ``The best word to describe a Senator is: free. He or she is free to 
stand up and debate, free to speak his or her mind, free to act 
according to his or her best judgment.
  ``I believe you would concur that the Senate's best debates,'' he 
added, ``are bipartisan debates.''
  These are seven remarkable leaders who achieved the highest positions 
in their parties--who know what it means to be in Teddy Roosevelt's 
``arena.''
  To them, bipartisanship is not emasculating. It is ennobling. It is 
not betraying the people who sent us here. It is the only hope we have 
of serving them.
  What is bipartisanship in the 107th Congress? We will need to find 
the right answer to that question if we are to serve our country well. 
We will not be able to quantify bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not a 
mathematical formula. It is a spirit. It is a way of working together 
that tolerates open debate. It recognizes principled compromise. It 
means respecting the right of each Senator to speak his or her mind, 
and vote his or her conscience. And it means recognizing that we must 
do business differently after an election that gave us a 50-50 Senate 
and an almost evenly divided House. Above all, it means putting the 
national interest ahead of personal or party interests.
  This year, as I said, is a historic year for the Senate. This past 
year was also historic. it was the 200th anniversary of Congress' first 
meeting in this building.
  As part of the anniversary celebration, artists are restoring what 
are known as the Brumidi Corridors on the first floor of the Capitol's 
Senate wing.
  The Corridors were painted more than 150 years ago by an Italian 
immigrant named Constantino Brumidi, the same man who painted the 
ceiling in the Rotunda.
  He has been called ``America's Michelangelo''--and with good reason.
  He spent 25 years of his life painting scenes on the walls and 
ceilings of this Capitol. It was a labor of love for the country he 
chose as his home.
  I think I must have walked through those corridors 1,000 times over 
the years. Every time, I marvel at Brumidi's talents and their beauty.
  Over the years, Brumidi's original work was covered with layers of 
paint and varnish and dirt. Now, restorers are scraping those layers 
off. And what they are revealing beneath is an even more beautiful 
depiction of Brumidi's imagination over 100 years ago.
  I believe the same can be true of this Senate. Many times over the 
last several years, a layer of bitter partisanship has settled over 
this body. Even with that disadvantage, it has remained the greatest 
legislative body in the history of the world, and one in which I am 
proud to serve. But think how much more effective it could be if we 
could wash away the partisanship.
  At the first Leaders' Lecture, Senator Lott compared the Old Senate 
Chamber to this Chamber. He said that the Old Chamber was more 
intimate, and more beautiful. And he was right. But this Chamber has 
one profound distinction that makes all the difference. The Old Chamber 
celebrates our past.

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In this Chamber, it is our privilege--and our responsibility--to chart 
our Nation's future.
  I look forward to working with Senators on both sides of the aisle, 
and with our new President, to find honorable ways to do the work we 
have all been sent here to do.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________