Watching the dedication
ceremonies of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States
Senate on C-SPAN recently got me to thinking about the opportunity
and obligation the Institute has to address the near complete
collapse of effective governance in Washington. Neither party has
clean hands. And worse, neither will fix this mess.
As
the former staff director of Sen. Kennedy’s Health Subcommittee in
the 1970s, I know that he would expect the Institute that bears his
name to tackle this problem because doing so is a direct extension
of the Institute’s stated mission: “encouraging participatory
democracy, invigorating civil discourse, and inspiring the next
generation of citizens and leaders to engage in the civic life of
their communities.”
Few
people know the story I’m about to tell you. But it epitomizes the
extraordinary talent, tenacity and creativity he brought to the
legislative process. It also illuminates the path forward for the
Institute.
When
Sen. Kennedy became Chairman of the Health Subcommittee in 1971 his
first task was to pass the War on Cancer bill, S.34, that included
the recommendations of a special panel of 26 scientific experts and
distinguished laymen, including Dr. Sidney Farber, then the
scientific director of the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation
in Boston.
The
ranking minority member of our subcommittee was conservative
Republican Peter Dominick of Colorado. Kennedy and Dominick didn’t
know one another well, and they didn’t trust each other.
But
the real problem had nothing to do with the need to expand cancer
research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in order to take
better advantage of the opportunities to combat the more than 100
diseases that are cancer. The problem was presidential politics.
President
Nixon was terrified that Kennedy was going to use the War on Cancer
as his stalking horse to challenge him in 1972. To thwart that
irrational fear Nixon sent an alternative cancer bill to Congress
that Dominick introduced, S.1828. It was substantively flimsy,
lacking the scientific content of Kennedy’s bill. Thus, the stage
was set for a bitter battle between Nixon and Kennedy over who would
get the credit for the cancer initiative. It was a precursor of the
deadlock in Washington today.
However,
in the closed subcommittee mark-up session on both bills that
summer, Sen. Kennedy did something astonishing. He turned to
Dominick and said, “Peter, why don’t you report S.1828.” By
offering to let Dominick report the bill from the committee and
manage it on the Senate floor, he was proposing to turn the
leadership of the cancer initiative over to Dominick and the Nixon
administration. Something like this never happens!
Then
Kennedy said he would offer an amendment to strike all of the
language in S.1828 and substitute the language from his bill.
Dominick, caught completely by surprise, said, “That’s fine,
Ted.” Dominick’s staffer bolted from his chair and came over to
me and whispered, “Lee, I don’t know how to write a committee
report.” And I said, “We’ll do it together,” and that’s
exactly what we did.
Thus,
Nixon’s bill number with Kennedy’s language was on its way to
passage. In a stroke of brilliance, Ted Kennedy had turned what
would have become an unnecessary, paralyzing political war into what
became bipartisan public policy. The ripple effect of what Kennedy
did was dramatic. The enactment of the cancer bill in December of
1971 not only triggered a massive expansion of basic and clinical
cancer research, it also greatly expanded research at NIH for all
other diseases.
From
that point forward Dominick and Kennedy knew they could trust each
other. They worked cooperatively together on many more health bills.
For Kennedy the die was cast. Not only had he learned the
irreplaceable value of compromise and surprise, he used those skills
over and over again as the decades rolled by to become the Senate’s
Legislative Lion.
Now
Ted Kennedy is gone, and so is the spirit of trust and accommodation
that is essential to a functioning democracy. In its place, fear and
hatred control Congress and its relations with the White House. If
allowed to continue, it poses an existential threat to our freedom
and to democracy itself.
It’s
obvious the federal government won’t put this right. It needs
help, and the Kennedy Institute has the opportunity and the
obligation to provide some of that help – not because I say so,
but because Ted Kennedy would expect nothing less. Such an endeavor
for the Institute will not be easy or safe. The path forward is
perilous, but it must begin – now.
When
it’s begun I can hear Ted saying what we heard him say so often
over the years: “Good, Good.”
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