What We'll Miss and What We Won't

By MICHAEL DUFFY, DOUGLAS WALLER

TIME: What's wrong with Congress?

Nickles: In the past few years, the Senate has become probably more partisan than I think a lot of us like to see. I hope there will be greater attention focused on being statesmen and Senators, sinking into the legislative process and maybe having partisanship a lot lower [in priority].

Hollings: The body politic has got a cancer of money. I ran in 1998, and I raised $8.5 million. That's about $30,000 a week, each week, every week, for six years. If I missed Christmas and New Year's weeks, I'm $100,000 in the hole. So the race begins the next day [after your election]. We're collecting for six years out. That means we don't work on Monday. We don't work on Friday. I've got to get money, money, money, money. And I only listen to the people who give me money. With the shortage of time and everything else, you've got to listen to the $1,000 givers. I mean, no individual is corrupt, but the body has been corrupted. I've been trying to put in a constitutional amendment to regulate or control spending in federal elections. I had 12 Republicans supporting it in the '80s. Now I can't get a Republican because they say, 'Wait a minute. We've got the money. [The Democrats] have got [organized] labor.' [To Nickles] Now y'all have proved we ain't got labor.

Breaux: Yeah, but [Republicans] have got God on their side.

Nickles: [Getting up to leave, with a laugh] Well, I'm out of here.

Hollings: Money, money. That's got to be excised. I don't have any time for the people. I don't have any time for the Senators. I just got time for money. Hurry up and get the money so I can get on that TV to get re-elected.

Campbell: Fritz is right. When you divide it up by the number of days you have to raise it, you've got to raise a thousand bucks or two thousand every single day. [But] I'd like to think that with all of our weaknesses and all of our problems, we must be doing something right, because if you look at every emerging country, the kind of government they try to emulate is ours. Because we do have a government in which we try to include everybody, it's complicated as hell. When the Founding Fathers set it up, who in the world could have ever envisioned some of the complicated things we get involved in now, which very often are driven by almost a religious belief--like gun control, partial-birth abortion, gay marriage. I think we get driven an awful lot of times by those narrowly focused constituent groups. Sometimes we listen to those real volatile special interests more than doing the work that most people want--and that's staying somewhere in the middle.

Breaux: I'm leaving not because I'm unhappy or mad about the Congress. I've been here 32 years in the House and Senate, and I've enjoyed every single minute of it. Some minutes I've enjoyed more than other minutes. But I think that there is a danger that has come upon the system, where we are running a risk of not being in control of our own destiny as a Congress. There are so many outside forces that try to dictate to us what we do, when we do it, and how we'll do it. There are groups that we all represent that think that Congress should be like the Super Bowl, where you have to have one team that wins and one team that loses. We spend an inordinate amount of time in our [party] caucuses talking about what we should do and never hearing the other side. Then we have the public-relations firms and the people in the various lobbying organizations pushing us to make sure that we win and [the other side] loses. There's nothing wrong with both sides getting together and reaching a compromise. Both sides can win. But we don't think like that. When I was here [in the House, as a Congressman in the 1980s] and [minority leader] Bob Michel and [Speaker] Tip O'Neill were running the House, they spoke [to each other] more in one day than the current leaders speak in a whole year.

TIME: What should be fixed in the way things are done in Congress?

Breaux: We need more interaction between the two parties. I remember [former Louisiana Senator] Russell Long talking about the number of joint lunches [Democrats and Republicans] used to have, where they used to sit down and hear each other out. We don't do that anymore. A lot of the new Senators are from the House. And I would hope that they wouldn't bring the House mentality to the Senate, because it's really a poisonous atmosphere over there. [Representatives] really don't like each other in a lot of cases.

Campbell: If you look at the spectrum of Senators, you're going to find a few who are pretty much driven from the right and a few who are driven from the left. And you're going to find a whole lot more somewhere in the middle. But both parties are driven by constituent groups. We tend to lean on them very heavily, [so Senators will] be good soldiers rather than try to find something in the middle. And that's the way it is often reported in the press with the use of athletic terms--particularly boxing terms, by the way.

TIME: In the 1980s and '90s, Congress enacted major reforms--such as in welfare and taxes--with compromises by both parties. Can it do the same big fixes today that require big compromises?

Nickles: I would think so and hope so. If you're talking about rewriting the tax code or reforming Social Security, it's going to take bipartisan action. Unfortunately, in the past couple years, the Senate has moved toward this idea that we have to have 60 votes [the number necessary to overcome a filibuster] to pass anything. We need to get away from that. It seemed like there was either a filibuster or a threat of filibuster every other day. That should really be relegated to very few exceptions. The Senate wasn't designed to be filibustered on every little issue or nominee.

Hollings: That's why I think we got beat [in the Senate elections]. I disagreed with our leadership on filibustering everything. Damn it, give it to them! Give them the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It suits the hell out of me. I'm against it, but give all of that crap to them. And then the people will see all that crap and put us back in office. By the way, the Senate is way better than what it was 38 years ago. We had five drunks in the Senate. Now we're so busy, we ain't got no time for drunks.

Breaux: [Laughing] Let me suggest that if we drank more, we'd be better. On whether the institution has the capacity to address these huge issues out there--Social Security is one of them. It's highly emotional. Both parties are scared to death of touching it. Everybody wants us to fix it, but nobody wants us to do the things that are necessary in order to fix it. The fact is, if we don't do anything, it's headed over a cliff. Does Congress have the capacity to find a way to reach an agreement on a huge social issue for this country's future? Right now I think the answer is no.

Campbell: If you spend most of your time trying to get reelected and chasing the money, it's difficult to make the tough decision to do that.

Nickles: I don't quite agree. I shouldn't say this, but most incumbents can get re-elected without raising money, because of the advantages of incumbency. Every once in a while you'll have a contested seat.

Hollings: But as a Democrat in a Republican state, I have to travel the country [for money]. I've got good Republican friends who vote for me. But they don't want to give to me because their name appears in the paper, and then they go to the club on Saturday and it's "Why did you give to that damn Democrat?" So I get off my ass and travel to Oklahoma to get money.

TIME: Republicans are beginning to build a more substantial majority in the Senate. Could that actually lead to getting these major bills and compromises through?

Nickles: I think so.

Breaux: I thought that [when the Senate was evenly split] it forced compromise. Neither side by itself could get anything done unless it reached across the aisle to the other side. The House [whose rules give the Republican majority more power to ram through legislation] doesn't have to deal with Democrats. The congressional districts are either all-Democratic districts or all-Republican districts. If I'm in an all-Democratic district, I don't have to worry about what the Republicans think. Or if I'm in an all-Republican district, I don't have to worry about what the Democrats think. I never vote with them because my district is safe. If the Senate is 60-40, the 60 never has to worry about what the 40 is concerned about.

TIME: Recall the first day you walked into the Senate and the notion you had of what the job would be like. Did it turn out to be right or wrong?

Nickles: It was 1981 when I came in. There was euphoria. I remember Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Address was the same day the [Iran] hostages were released. The concurrence of those events was just really ecstatic. Plus we had a change in leadership in the Senate for the first time in decades. To be part of that was just a lot of fun. Frankly, my expectations were high, and it greatly exceeded my expectations. I came in as a businessperson and wanted to cut taxes. I wanted to expand freedom throughout the world, and we've had great success. To be a little part of that is quite an honor.

Breaux: I came to the House in 1972 and then came here in 1986. I left the House and the [Democratic] majority to run for the U.S. Senate, [where Democrats were] in the minority. But to represent the whole state and to be involved in more issues was worth it. I always wanted to simply say, 'Let's make government work.' And I've been very satisfied. Some frustrations, of course, but I think we've been able to get things done.

Campbell: I'm the low man on the totem pole here. I've only been here 18 years. I never was a big-Eastern-city guy. They're too big and too fast. I like that ranch life out there where I live. But this is where the job is. Every time I see this Capitol, I get the same feeling I've had for 18 years. Sometimes in the wintertime, when the snow is on the ground here and you see this building in the moonlight, it's just hard to explain the feeling that I get.

Hollings: I'm a trial lawyer. I made enough money in 20 years as a trial lawyer to afford [working in] this Senate. And I was enthused because, good God, you had a better class of life here. You could make the final argument to the jury and then go in the jury room and vote. The Senate was just hunky-dory. I was just tickled to death. And I'm not sad that I'm not making all that money because I've been enriched otherwise. I'm better stimulated. And all my other trial-lawyer friends are either dead or looking for another golf course or another drink.

TIME: Any other changes?

Hollings: The women [Senators] have made a material change. [In the late 1960s] we had one gal, Margaret Chase Smith. You'd never hear from her. Now you can't shut them up. We've got 14, and they're outstanding.

Nickles: [Laughing]His press secretary is having a heart attack right now.

Hollings: Get in a debate with [Maryland Senator] Barbara Mikulski. Get into a debate with [California Senator] Barbara Boxer. They really have elevated our service. And they're more conscientious. I would say in 15 to 20 years, the majority of Senators will be women. They've got the time and the disposition. And they're trusted because they're not looking to make a living. It's good. o