Question and Answer Session with Former Congressmen

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Published over 2 years ago

During their two day visit to Pomona last week as part of the Pomona Student Union’s “Congress to Campus” event, The Student Life sat down with former Congressmen Dennis Hertel (D-MI) and Dennis “Denny” Smith (R-OR) to talk politics and life on the Hill.TSL: Is there a discrepancy between how we study politics in school versus how it actually operates? Is that something you’ve noticed when traveling to campuses like ours?Rep. Dennis Hertel (D-MI): I always tell people to get involved in campaigns. It’s the best thing they can do. It’s great to be an intern, great to work in an office. But, if you work in a campaign you’ll see the emotions and the issues and these pulls in a personal way under pressure that you won’t any other way. When I was 12, I worked in Jack Kennedy’s campaign after I met him, and at different ages did handles and that kind of stuff, you see it in a different way than obviously the television and news coverage or the formal speaking engagements of office holders.Rep. Denny Smith (R-OR): It’s kind of interesting, but congress is exactly like the rest of the population. It really is a people’s house. You see all kinds of wonderful people. All kinds of schysters—you get the whole thing. That other tent, it’s always there, no matter what. It was a great personal privilege, as far as I’m concerned, to be a member of the Congress of the United States. I remember my dad was in politics, and I thought, I would never have anything to do with it. I was not interested. I would go to these things as a kid, I’d go to a meeting with him at some place, and it was so boring.TSL: You mentioned getting involved with campaigns, what do you think of the whole “youth push” that happened for Obama last year?Hertel: Well, I think it was tremendous. My wife and I have been talking about “why aren’t young people more upset about what’s happening in the country? Or upset about the war?” So, we finally saw an outpouring. But, unlike others, it was highly organized. This is the first time we’ve seen that much organization and that high number of people participating. It was tremendous. I think what the media missed out of all that is you had average people not only participating, but also giving money for the first time in the history of our country. Average people giving ten dollars a week. It’s never been duplicated before. If we could do that as our total system for Congress and the Senate, we would get over the problem that we have, if we could get these average people to participate and actually fund these elections rather than special interest groups.Smith: Maybe the use of the internet is actually going to help with that, it’s hard to tell.TSL: We’ve read in the Washington Post that you, Congressmen Hertel, were disillusioned with politics by the time you left the Hill. Now that you’re going around talking up the virtues of civic engagement, how do you bring the two elements together—on the one hand a somewhat negative experience with politics and at the same time encouraging people to get involved with the process?Hertel: I think there’s both sides to it, still. I think the president may feel like that some days too, and I know the members of Congress do—even the ones who have made a long-term commitment. Some days you just get so frustrated. Take the example of death panels. That goes on for two weeks and in the meanwhile you have people working on the nitty-gritty, and then you’ve got to be distracted by this.Smith: There is a dichotomy that we all have. If I hadn’t been defeated in 1990, my wife and I decided that I would get out of it in 1992. I think 12 years is pretty much about as much time as anybody ought to spend [in office]. The problem is when you get these guys who stay and have increasing power and increasing ability. I can’t imagine doing that 20 years later. I would have it so that you can have 12 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate, so you can really have 24 years.Jordan Cohen and Lauri Valerio contributed reporting on this story.

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