Politics Then and Now, in Maine and the Nation Conversations with the Sages presented by the Muskie School of Public Service and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine Edited by Richard Barringer and Kenneth Palmer Illustrations by Steve Hrehovcik POLITICS THEN AND NOW: IN MAINE AND THE NATION 31 Series Sponsors Cutler Family Foundation Peter Mills Illustrations Text copyright © Muskie School of Public Service, 2014 2 POLITICS THEN AND NOW: IN MAINE AND THE NATION Contents Acknowledgments 4 1. Introduction and Lessons Learned 5 Richard Barringer and Kenneth Palmer Politics Then and Now, In Maine and the Nation 2. Tom Allen, Worldviews in Conflict 10 3. George Mitchell, The Importance of Listening 19 4. Angus King, Ten Comparisons, Then & Now 28 5. Barney Frank, It’s Not the System, It’s the Voters 39 6. Kenneth Curtis, Governing for The People 52 7. Elizabeth Mitchell, Productive Partisanship 60 8. Peter Mills, “Teach Your Children Well” 71 9. Closing Panel: Looking Forward 81 Amy Fried, Some Positive Signs in Maine Kenneth Fredette, It’s About Relationships & a Budget Cynthia Dill, On Wealth & Income Inequality 10. Special Supplement: Enough Is Enough! 91 William Cohen and Alan Simpson About the Editors 102 Brief Biographies of Speakers & Panelists 103 Recommended Readings 107 Index 108 Dedicated to Our Wives Martha Freeman and Janice Palmer for Their Gifts of Abiding Love and Artful Persuasion R.B. & K.P. POLITICS THEN AND NOW: IN MAINE AND THE NATION 33 Acknowledgments The Wishcamper Center, home to the Muskie School of Public Service and the Osher Lifelong Learning Center at USM. e are deeply grateful for the indispensable as- • Charles Beck and Lynnsay Maynard of the Maine sistance and support of the many colleagues and Public Broadcasting Network for their timely W friends who made the series and its publication broadcast of the lecture series via public radio possible. These include: throughout Maine and beyond; • Each of our speakers and panelists, who interrupted • Allen G. Pease for his early reading and thoughtful a busy life to to participate; suggestions; • Richard Sturgeon and Susan Morrow of the Osher • Peter Weed of Hutchins Weed Communications for Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of his design and layout of this document; and Southern Maine; • Jan Staples, Director of the William S. Cohen • Joseph McDonnell, Dean of USM’s College of Center for International Policy & Commerce, Management & Human Service, and Sondra University of Maine, for her editorial assistance and Bogdonoff, Sara Litwiller, Arline Palmer, Kyle permission to include the 2013 Cohen Lecture as a Radke, and Dan Roach of his staff; Prof. Jack Special Supplement. Kartez of the Muskie School of Public Service Finally, we are lastingly grateful to the series’ most and graduate assistant Benjamin Averill; Beverly generous sponsors: Bayley-Smith of the Casco Bay Estuary Project; • Bangor Daily News and Robin Dumont of the Cutler Institute; • Bernstein Shur LLC • USM’s Monique LaRoque, Director of Professional • Cutler Family Fund and Continuing Education; Elizabeth Morin, • Dead River Company Director of Conference Services; and Angela Cook, • Drummond Woodsum LLC Manager of Audiovisual and Media Services, and • F.L. Putnam Investment Management her intrepid assistant, Chad Brown; • Lewiston Sun Journal • Shari Young Rogers of Asheville NC, for her • Maine Community Foundation transcriptions of the lectures; her abiding friend, • Mainebiz Margery Niblock of Portland ME, for her careful • Peter Mills copyediting and useful index; and Steve Hrehovcik • Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. of Kennebunk ME, for his eloquent and expressive Our sincere and abiding thanks to one and all! illustrations; R.B. and K.P. February 2014 4 POLITICS THEN AND NOW: IN MAINE AND THE NATION 1. Introduction and Lessons Learned Background and Context t is now commonplace that American national politics has become polarized and dysfunctional of late. The in- Iability of Congress to accommodate partisan differences has led to its failure to enact a federal budget in the past four years,1 a partial federal government shutdown for the first time in 17 years, and the absence of progress on im- migration reform, infrastructure repair, climate change, and other important national challenges. The partisan gridlock has led the American public of late to give Congress some of its lowest approval ratings in history. One recent poll found 85 percent of Americans hold an unfavorable view Richard Barringer Kenneth Palmer of Congress, while only 9 percent approve.2 Another indi- place between the political parties in this system – as well cated that fully 54 percent of Americans favor removing all as among the three separate branches of government – for the members of Congress. national policy to be set and for national institutions to do The face of the gridlock is the lack of civility, comity, their work. and cooperation between two political parties with divergent How ideological battles and party polarization came to worldviews, as they vie for political power and policy domi- replace the accustomed “consensus” arrangements of com- nance in a changing world, within a constitutional system promise and coalition-building is a topic that draws much designed for coalition-building and principled compromise. scholarly attention today.3 While the cited causes for dys- In a parliamentary system like Great Britain’s, where function are many and complex, a single fact illustrates its the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers all hold seats as centrality in today’s Congress. In surveys of voting behav- lawmakers in the Parliament, a single election may deter- ior among members of the Senate, the most liberal member mine the policy direction of the government. In the United of the Republican caucus was still recorded in roll calls as States, where the president, the House of the Representa- more conservative than the most conservative-voting mem- tives, and the Senate serve different terms of office, three ber of the Democratic caucus.4 In brief, a long-existing area election cycles may be required to set direction. Occasions of ideological overlap between the two parties at the center where each party controls but a part of the government are of the political spectrum has disappeared. frequent, as a result. Our series, Politics Then and Now, in Maine and the Na- This framework was established in the U.S. Constitu- tion, was presented by the Muskie School of Public Service tion, itself. It was much praised by the writers of the Feder- and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University alist papers, particularly James Madison, as a way to curb of Southern Maine. It was held at a dark time – mid-Sep- arbitrary authority and to discourage dominance of the tember through early November 2013 – when the federal government by any one group or faction. Power was pur- government was partially shutdown for the first time in 17 posely distributed among three branches – the legislative, years, for lack of a federal budget that was then extended executive, and judicial – to slow the governing process and to January 2014. The Congress threatened to default on the accretion of power, and to allow for careful delibera- the nation’s debt and, at the deadline, extended the limit to tion. Of necessity, compromise and bargaining must take February 2014. The initial, technically-flawed implementa- tion of the new Affordable Care Act, “ObamaCare,” only ________________________________________________________ renewed Congressional debate about the legitimacy of the law and deepened the partisan divide. 1 On January 17, 2014, the Congress passed and the President signed into law a budget to continue operation of the federal government through the end of On November 7, 2013, the same day as our Closing Panel federal fiscal year 2014, September 30, 2014. presentation, the 2013 Cohen Lecture was delivered at the 2 Public Policy Polling, Raleigh NC, January 8, 2014. University of Maine, featuring Sec. William S. Cohen and 3 See, for example, Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann, It’s Even Worse Sen. Alan K. Simpson, on “The State of Our Nation: Hard- Than It looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the ball vs. Civility.” Because of its cogent and timely content, New Politics of Extremism, 2012; Daniel M. Shea and Morris P. Fiorina it is included here with permission as a Special Supplement (eds.), Can We Talk: The Rise of Rude, Nasty, Stubborn Politics, 2013; Susan Herbst, Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics, 2010; to the series, under the title, “Enough Is Enough!” and Sean M. Theriault, The Gingrich Senators: The Roots of Partisan Warfare The central idea behind the series is that we’ve come a in Congress, 2013. long way since President John F. Kennedy characterized 4 John H. Aldrich, “Partisan Polarization and Satisfaction with Democracy,” in public service as “a noble calling,” to today, when the na- Shea and Fiorina, op.cit., New York, Pearson Education, 2013, pp. 125-26. POLITICS THEN AND NOW: IN MAINE AND THE NATION 35 tion’s political system is routinely described as “dysfunc- • What does Maine have to offer the nation in this re- tional” and public servants, as selfish bureaucrats. Systems gard, based on our experience here? theory5 has developed and been refined since World War We asked all to include personal anecdotes and vignettes II to help us better understand and improve the behavior from their own experience, to throw light on these ques- of complex systems – natural, human, and social. A well- tions; and to reflect on the lessons their experience offers established principle of the theory is that, in any healthy Maine and the nation today. Questions and answers fol- system, competition and cooperation co-exist side by side lowed each lecture and the panelists’ presentations.