AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now!, the daily election year political talk show from Pacifica Radio. I’m Amy Goodman.

When Democratic Representative Tom Foley lost his bid for reelection in 1994, it was the first time in 102 years that a sitting speaker of the House was defeated. Although Foley is no longer a member of Congress, he’s still intimately involved in national politics as a member of a Washington, D.C., law and lobbying firm. Last week, Foley was in California, where Pacifica national affairs correspondent Larry Bensky caught up with him to get his perspectives on “the House that Newt built” and the presidential race.

LARRY BENSKY: Speaker Foley, this the first time in 32 years you’re not running for office, 1996. What’s that doing to you?

TOM FOLEY: Well, actually, it’s kind of fun not to run for office. I was very grateful to my constituents for giving me a chance to represent them in Congress for 30 years. But every election for the past 15 times, a national election, I’ve been engaged in my own reelection, so it concentrates your attention, as they say. Now there’s an opportunity to kind of sit back and look at the election, watch it with the interest of a detached private citizen.

LARRY BENSKY: Had you not been defeated, you would have been minority leader in the House, and you would have been minority leader, as Mr. Gephardt is, at the time of the Gingrich ascendancy. Do you follow Congress closely now? You’re still in Washington, in a Washington law firm. Are you a C-SPAN junkie, watching it all the time? Or have you unplugged from it?

TOM FOLEY: Well, I’ve unplugged from it in the sense that I don’t watch it sort of through C-SPAN every day. I’m doing other things. But I am, you know, interested in what’s going on there. I don’t go up to the Hill very often, hardly at all. I don’t think former speakers ought to hang around. But I don’t think I’ll ever lose an interest in the Congress or in public affairs. And when you spent 30 years in the House, you can’t help but be interested in what’s going on.

LARRY BENSKY: Well, as you do observe, as much as you do observe in Washington, what’s gone on on the Hill, there’s a definite change of tone from the years that you were there. People are yelling at each other. All kinds of inflammatory speeches are being given during special orders. This is the kind of thing you showed a great distaste for when you were speaker. Where is it coming from now?

TOM FOLEY: Well, I think there’s been a tendency, as you say, to become more confrontational in the House, to be — well, frankly, a lack of civility, I think, is showing up, that’s a concern to members themselves, inflammatory speeches, tough relations between the parties, a lack of sort of acquaintance and friendship across party lines that used to exist there. I think part of it is the result of the fact that the issues have gotten pretty heated. And I think, frankly, the change in responsibility, where the first time the Republicans have been in charge in 40 years caused the changeover and to bruise some feelings. And the Democrats aren’t very comfortable in being the minority. They haven’t been the minority before. And I don’t think the Republicans have been as skilled as they might be in being the majority. Whether that will improve or not, we’ll see. I hope it does, because I think if you have too much tension and conflict and confrontation, then you don’t really see the institution function as well, and the end product isn’t as good, frankly.

LARRY BENSKY: You could have seen this coming, though. You saw Newt Gingrich and his band of seven Republicans quickly grow in power and in acerbity. As speaker, was there anything that you could have done, do you think, in retrospect, to stop them and this rising Republican tide?

TOM FOLEY: Well, I think there are two questions there — one, whether we could have done something to, you know, make the institution function in a more conciliatory way. I tried to do that. After Speaker Wright resigned, I tried to calm down the tensions on the House floor and between the members. And to some extent, I think I succeeded. But there was a residue of bitterness and anger over the Wright resignation on the Democratic side with many members. There was a growing impatience on the Republican side to take responsibility for the House and win elections. And so, it’s, I think, sort of developed from that period.

As far as avoiding the election loss, looking back on the period between 1993 and 1994 and the election of '94, I think I would, if I had a do-over again, urge the president to move more quickly on healthcare, except maybe a less far-reaching bill, move on to other issues. I think we got bogged down with healthcare. It created an eventual, I think, reaction of public anger that we hadn't finished anything so significant. There were a lot of other things that, looking back on it, you can think you should have done better and quicker. But…

LARRY BENSKY: What about campaign finance? Let’s take one of those. That’s one of the ones that the Democratic Party is constantly criticized about. You had a chance. You had majorities. You had a president in the White House who could have signed something. It didn’t get done. And now we have complete, runaway abuse, in many people’s eyes, of soft money, hard money, personal money, money completely driving the system.

TOM FOLEY: Well, campaign finance reform is tough legislation to pass, first of all, because it’s something that’s very important in elections, and members are all experts on it. They don’t — this isn’t something casual, and it’s something they think they know something about.

There are some differences between the parties, too, on how they view campaign reform. So, the Republicans told us in 1993, “There’s no way we’re going to give you any votes. You’re not going to get any votes from us. You’ve got to pass this bill among your own Democratic members.”

On our own side, there were differences of opinion about, with women members, for example, felt very strongly about Emily’s List, a special program in which work was done to help women candidates. PACs, although they’re widely criticized, are helpful to candidates who can’t raise all their money in their own districts. Women and minority members especially need some help.

So, we finally, at the end of 1994, had gotten a bill passed in the House, passed in the Senate, an agreed conclusion between the two of them, and the Republican Senate members filibustered the appointment of a conference that was going to resolve those differences, the first time in 200 years and more that a conference was ever filibustered. So, I must say that what they did was hold and hit, and by preventing, through technical interruption of the process, the final product being achieved, we weren’t able to pass it. And we got the blame, not the Republicans. That was an interesting conclusion.

LARRY BENSKY: Nevertheless, I think you have to agree that the campaign finance system is out of control. You had to raise, yourself, more than $2 million in your last race for Congress in the state of Washington, which is enough in other states to win a Senate seat or a governorship. Now we see another election cycle where we were seeing the spectacle of private money — Steve Forbes here in California, Michael Huffington, of course, Ross Perot. So, between public and private financing, a lot of people are saying, “One of the reasons I’m turned off to this political system is the finance of campaigns is out of control.”

TOM FOLEY: Well, the problem with the unlimited funding by candidates who have money is the Supreme Court decision Buckley v. Valeo some years ago, which said that you can’t restrict an individual candidate from spending his or her own money, though that’s a problem. We’d have to change the Constitution to do much about that. I think it was wrongly decided, but I think we’re stuck with the decision unless the Supreme Court changes its mind.

On the question of reforming the system, frankly, I think the best way to reform the system would be to have a significant part of public — partial public financing in Congress, as we do for the presidential election. But it’s widely unpopular. And the problem, in part, is the fact that this is a system that would help challengers, frankly, more than it would help incumbents. And incumbents know that. Even so, many incumbents would be willing to support partial public financing as a reform, but they would expect, almost inevitably, that they’d get some credit for having taken an action against their own interest in order to reform the system. Instead, the average and immediate reaction of most people is, “Well, you’re trying to finance your own campaigns. You’re trying to get public money from yourself.” So, that’s very hard to pass.

LARRY BENSKY: One of the — 

TOM FOLEY: We need to — I don’t mean to sound totally pessimistic about it. We need to do it. And I’m disappointed that the speaker and the president, who shook hands about doing campaign reform in January, haven’t. I think I have to blame this on the Congress, because they haven’t sent the president any legislation. They haven’t moved on it.

LARRY BENSKY: They were supposed to appoint a joint commission, which never got appointed.

TOM FOLEY: Never got appointed.

LARRY BENSKY: One of the things that people also criticize is Congress’s privileges. And one of the privileges that’s been criticized — and I’ve seen you criticized for this, as a matter of fact — is congressional pensions. People serve, as you did for 30 years, and you get, I don’t know, $125,000-, $130,000-a-year pension. Plus, you’re able, as you’ve done, to walk across the street, walk in, work in a major Washington law firm. I guess you don’t have to file personal disclosure forms anymore, so I don’t know how much money you make. But it’s not nothing. What about that system? How can that be reformed?

TOM FOLEY: Well, some people think the congressional pension system and other government pensions are too high. That’s being examined. But, actually, the congressional pension value is not, by any means, the most generous in Congress. Probably the most generous are federal judges, who have their own salaries never diminished. As long as they live, they go on an active status. And military pensions are not contributed to. They don’t require contribution. And when somebody serves 30 years in the military, they retired at two-thirds.

LARRY BENSKY: Well, is that defending something because they’re doing it?

TOM FOLEY: No, but I’m just saying that I think it has to be looked at in context. I’m now in the private sector, and I can tell you that private compensation and private pensions are very often much, much more generous than anything that’s done at the government level. Whether it’s something that’s excessive or beyond what the country wants to do, I think, is going to be examined. I think the present Congress is probably going to take a look at it.

LARRY BENSKY: You served in Congress through Watergate, served in Congress through the reform movements of the mid-'70s, the Pike and Church Commission. After Watergate and all its reforms, we still have, in many people's eyes, scandalous campaign finance. After the Church and Pike Committees, we still had Iran-Contra. Do things get better?

TOM FOLEY: Well, I think they do get better. And, for example, there was a book written not too long ago, four or five years ago, by Suzanne Garment. It’s entitled Scandal. And the thesis of this book is that the standards of public behavior and conduct are improving and have improved over the last 25 years. But the public reaction is that things are getting worse in Washington and people are misbehaving more and there’s more scandal. That’s simply not the case. And the people who live and work there, I think, know that’s not the case.

But every government, every institution is going to have to have need for review of its conduct and activities. Today, we’re going through all kinds of review of the intelligence agencies by private and public groups, looking to a possible reorganization of their effort. But I still think intelligence is an important activity that needs to be carried on. The American government, I think, is probably, arguably, the most upright and the most scandal-free of any — at least at the level that I’ve experienced it, of any in the world. I would be hard pressed to name one that’s better.

LARRY BENSKY: And where does the public perception come from that government is evil, government is bad, government can’t do anything? And presidents, of course, ever since Richard Nixon, have been running on this theme as being an outsider, as being the person who can reform government. I don’t know how Bob Dole thinks he’s going to pull that theme off if he tries it, but Bill Clinton certainly did.

TOM FOLEY: Well, I think that’s been part of the problem, frankly, not only the people, presidential candidates, but members of Congress themselves. I mean, I wouldn’t exempt members of Congress from blame. Every once in a while, I used to hear members describe how they’d go to a public meeting, and somebody would stand up and criticize the Congress, and they’d agree with them. They wouldn’t disagree with them. They’d say, “You’re right,” and so forth, “But I’m different, of course. I’m not the kind of person you’re describing.”

I was glad to see Bob Dole the other day stand up and say that he didn’t join those who thought that government was terrible and couldn’t do any good and was all bad and the rest of it.

LARRY BENSKY: How could he?

TOM FOLEY: Well, he’s been involved with it for a long time, that’s right. But it’s also obvious that we have to be sure that government doesn’t overreach, that it doesn’t tax too much, that it doesn’t waste money, that it doesn’t get involved in abuses of rights. Those things are a requirement in any society. And in ours, where we have the tools and the means to do that, we should exercise them constantly.

On the other hand, it is also, to me, a kind of an irony that the American government, which has spread its influence throughout the world, where, from Alexanderplatz to the Soviet Union to the Tiananmen Square and South Africa, the spirit of democratic reform has been ignited by this country, basically by other democracies, as well, but this country principally, and here at home, we’ve got more people doubting that the system works, more cynicism, more distrust, more anger at our own government than I think any kind of realistic examination of it would justify. When I went to Congress in 1965, 30 years ago, the average American, when asked, “How much of the time can you trust the government?” said — three-quarters of them answered, “Most or all of the time.” Last year, when that question was asked, less than 25%, less than one in four, said you could trust the government most or all of the time.

LARRY BENSKY: Let me just ask you one final question, Mr. Speaker. The perception in the United States that voting doesn’t make a difference, that politicians don’t make a difference, the low, as you mentioned, voter turnout, which is now lower than ever — in the Republican primaries, we’re talking 15, 17%, something like that, of people participating. How do you think that’s going to be turned around by the present political system, the two-party system? Are we going to have to have something more than a two-party system, perhaps a Perot party, a Ralph Nader party, something like that, in order to reinvigorate public participation?

TOM FOLEY: Well, I hope we can find ways to do it, because I’m not sure what the answer is, frankly, in a simple prescription. But I’m not sure that third parties are the answer. For one thing, third or fourth parties tend to have a perverse effect in our politics. There’s an old American song, “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” A party that is more progressive and more liberal tends to hurt the Democratic side of the ticket. A party that’s libertarian and extremely conservative or ideological on the right tends to hurt the Republican Party. So, the problem with that kind of third- or fourth-party configuration is they always tend to help the party or the philosophy or the approach they least respect and support, not the one they mostly respect and support.

LARRY BENSKY: But we have examples in European democracies, for example, in France and in Italy, where there are — in Germany, where there are multiparty groupings that represent a broader spectrum than here. And those countries don’t seem to be falling apart politically. In fact, they have much greater voter participation than we have here.

TOM FOLEY: Well, that’s true, but they have greater voter participation sort of year in and year out in almost all countries. That’s, unfortunately, one of our real weaknesses, that we don’t turn out a great percentage of our registered or eligible voters.

But political cultures are different. Japan is moving now, I think, much more toward a U.S. style, almost two-party system perhaps. And in those countries that have multiple parties, you often have to have coalitions, and coalitions sometimes can get you into the difficult problem of having the tail wagging the dog, where the critical small party may make demands on the major party coalition partner that really are against its interests and, arguably, the interests of the electorate.

Anyway, so, it’s a difficult — so, the important thing is that democracy is still the best, or, as Winston Churchill said, the worst of all systems, except for every other. And it’s, I think, for most Americans, still an ideal, and they need to involve themselves.

LARRY BENSKY: Thank you very much, former House Speaker Thomas Foley.

AMY GOODMAN: And thank you, Larry Bensky. Larry will be joining us from Texas tomorrow. Democracy Now! is produced by Julie Drizin, with Pat Greenfield. Our engineer is Kenneth Mason, help today from Harriet Tanzman and Errol Maitland.

Tomorrow on Democracy Now!, it’s Super Tuesday. We’ll talk with Cecile Richards, daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Cecile has started a group called the Texas Freedom Network, which challenges the Christian Coalition. You can order cassette tapes of Democracy Now! by calling 1-800-735-0230. That’s 1-800-735-0230. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening to Democracy Now!