Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

Dorgan Discusses Bipartisanship in the Senate

Aired June 16, 2001 - 17:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From Washington: EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS. Now, Robert Novak and Mark Shields.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: I'm Robert Novak. Mark Shields and I will question one of the leaders of the Senate's new Democratic majority.

MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: His is Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIELDS (voice-over): The Senate passed it's second major bill of the session, education reform, by an overwhelming vote of 91 to 8.

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: I think we proved that bipartisanship is not just a buzz word in the Senate if we have common goals.

SHIELDS: But bipartisanship in the Senate may be short-lived, as it takes up the controversial health care issue, the patient's bill of rights.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), TENNESSEE: This bill, the reason why I know it's not going to pass, at least as written, in the United States Senate, this bill is really a bill of goods for the lawyers instead of a patient's bill of rights.

SHIELDS: Republicans are also demanding action on an energy bill.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG (R), IDAHO: I am now preparing to propose to the Republican leader that we slow the Daschle train down until we get a date certain from the majority leader of the United States Senate that energy will be dealt with sooner rather than later.

SHIELDS: Byron Dorgan has won election to public office for the last 32 years. Coming to the Senate in 1993, after serving 12 years in the U.S. House. In addition to heading the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, he is assistant Democratic floor leader ex officio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHIELDS: Byron Dorgan, welcome. I wanted to ask you about that patients' bill of rights, slowing that Daschle train down, as Senator Craig called it. Senator Daschle has announced that there is no more give on the Democratic side. Can you see, as assistant Democratic floor leader, 60 votes necessary to pass the McCain-Edwards-Kennedy-everybody-else patients' bill of rights?

SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), NORTH DAKOTA: Well, I don't know exactly where the votes are at this moment, but this is a bipartisan patients' bill of rights. This is about the fourth iteration of it, and it comes to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. We're going to have, I think, a lengthy debate, and we'll have a lot of amendments.

But this is good public policy. It's long past the time when we should have enacted the patients' bill of rights, and I think we're going to have a very strong group of senators who are going to be supportive of it.

SHIELDS: What do you say to Senator Dr. Bill Frist, who says this is a lawyers' relief act?

DORGAN: You know, there are a lot of issues on the patients' bill of rights, and perhaps we can talk about some of them.

But this issue of lawyers is really interesting to me. Senator Frist and those who think like him say, you know, the last thing we ought to do would be to let patients use a lawyer to hold a managed care organization accountable. They don't say anything about restricting the ability to managed care organizations to use lawyers. They use lots and lots of lawyers to go after patients who don't pay bills and so on. They just want to make sure the patients don't have access to a lawyer.

That's not the only issue. It's an important one, however, and we think that managed care organizations ought to be held accountable if they don't provide the health care that people expect and people deserve from the plans that they have.

SHIELDS: If it does pass the Senate and the House, can President George Bush veto a patients' bill of rights?

DORGAN: Well, you know, he's saying now he will, but the fact is, what we're debating is almost exactly what is in law in Texas. I understand it became law without his signature, but I would hope very much that if the Congress passes this, and I expect it will, the president will sign it. It's good legislation and long past the time when we should have given people the rights that exist in the patients' bill of rights.

NOVAK: But senator, just to make sure, no more compromise by the Democrats, is that correct?

DORGAN: All I'm saying is that we've already compromised. This happens to be a bipartisan piece of legislation. We've compromised, compromised and compromised again. I hope we now have the votes to pass this piece of legislation. NOVAK: Senator, on Saturday morning's front page in The Washington Post, there's a story about the Democrats getting ready to investigate the personal financial holdings of White House aides, particularly Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, with an eye to possible ethical infractions.

Is this the way the Democrats are going to use their majority, in a highly partisan manner?

DORGAN: No.

NOVAK: You're not going to go ahead with those investigations?

DORGAN: This is not the way we're going to use our majority. I mean, to the extent that questions are raised about individuals such as the one you've just described, when legitimate questions are raised, I think there's a responsibility to look into it.

But, look, we come to the majority wanting to do good things. We want to pass a patients' bill of rights and we want to enact legislation that deals with health care and education and good farm policy and a whole series of things that we think will improve this country.

In areas where you must investigate because allegations exist, we'll have to do that. But, look, I don't think it serves our party and I don't think it serves the interest of the American people to be on a bent to try to do what was done in the last couple of Congresses by the majority party. I mean, they seemed to be the party of investigations. I don't think that served this country's interest very well.

SHIELDS: Senator, there are a lot of complaints by you and other people that your proposals during the last several years did not get an up or down vote on the floor of the Senate.

As a member of the leadership, would you want to make sure that all of President Bush's proposals, whether you are for him or against him, did go to the Senate floor for an up or down vote, to be defeated or to be enacted?

DORGAN: I think you'll find that most of them will have an opportunity on the floor to be debated and voted on.

SHIELDS: All of them?

DORGAN: Well, I don't know that all of them. If you include, for example, a Supreme Court nomination that fails in the Judiciary Committee, I don't know that that's going to come to the floor of the Senate.

But my point is, I don't think we're going to run the Senate as Senator Lott did, where we try to use control to prevent someone from actually offering an amendment, and filing cloture petitions before the first amendment is filed. We're not going to do that. Senator Daschle has indicated this is a new approach, a new tone. Let's bring a bill to the floor and let it be debated. Let everybody offer their amendments. Let's find out where the votes are. I don't think it serves the country's interests or the interests of the United States Senate to tell people that you can't offer amendments on the floor of the Senate. That's not the way we're going to do things in the Senate.

SHIELDS: Senator Dorgan, during the debate on the president's tax cut bill, you pointed out time and again that the debt of the United States -- the whole entire debt -- would increase by $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years in spite of all of the talk about deficit reduction and debt reduction.

DORGAN: That's correct.

SHIELDS: I mean, that doesn't seem to be well known. What are the Democrats going to do about it?

DORGAN: Well, look, the budget is passed. The tax bill is passed. What I was pointing out was, all of this talk about deficit reduction, gross federal debt will increase during the 10 year period by $1.1 trillion. Gross federal debt will increase.

My point was that we ought to be moving in the other direction. We ought to be decreasing gross debt during a time when we've had better economic opportunities in this country.

So my only point was to say that this is -- it's counter- intuitive to do a very large tax cut and try to claim that you're reducing federal debt when, in fact, gross debt is increasing by $1.1 trillion.

SHIELDS: In Saturday's paper there was a report that, for the eighth straight month, there has been a decline in manufacturing in the United States, and that plant capacity in the United States was at its lowest point since 1983. Is there a Democratic solution? I mean, are we in a manufacturing recession?

DORGAN: Well, we have a slowed economy. No one knows exactly where this is heading. I saw the report on manufacturing activity and Jerry Jasinowski's discussion about it. I'm very concerned about the economy.

I'm very concerned about the trade deficit. The trade deficit is going way up. The economy is slowing down. And, you know, the president says, look, the approach to dealing with all of this is to have a very, very large tax cut that is back-end loaded. I don't think that's the way to deal with it.

But I think all of us need to be concerned about where this economy is headed.

NOVAK: Senator Dorgan, the president's Social Security Advisory Commission held its first meeting this week. And one of the commissioners, Thomas Saving, who really happens to be a public trustee of the Social Security system, had this to say, and I'd like you to listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS SAVING, SOCIAL SECURITY PUBLIC TRUSTEE: By 2070 these three programs will be 100 percent of the federal budget, and that obviously cannot happen. It will not happen, and that means either these programs will be gone or the federal government is going to be an awful lot bigger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: He's talking about Social Security and the two Medicare programs.

You're an expert on Social Security. Isn't he exactly correct -- we don't hear from either side in Congress -- that either more revenue is going to have to be put into this system or the benefits are going to have to be reduced?

DORGAN: Well, look, both in Social Security and Medicare, we're plagued with this good news: people living longer, living much, much longer and better lives.

DORGAN: So the result is, we have more strains on Medicare and Social Security. But my point is, this is all borne out of good news. If...

NOVAK: But something's going to have to be done about this.

DORGAN: Yes, and we're going to make some adjustments, and we've already made some adjustments. As you know, the '83 act made adjustments. We'll make further adjustments.

But I don't think the right approach to this is to say let's take $1 trillion out of a pay-as-you-go system and use it for private accounts. I notice now that the White House is talking about having Wall Street come up with a $20 million advertising campaign in order to persuade Congress to allow money to be taken out to put into private accounts. Well, taking $1 trillion away from the Social Security system that is needed is not a way to solve the problem.

NOVAK: We have to take a break, but I want to get a quick answer from you. You, then, are rejecting out of hand any chance of the commission's recommendation by your former Democratic colleague, former Senator Pat Moynihan of New York, if he comes up with a private investment account?

DORGAN: You know, we all know this commission is stacked with people who all believe the same thing. They believe that we ought to take money from Social Security and put it in private accounts on Wall Street.

NOVAK: And you're against that?

DORGAN: Yes, I am against that. I am for strengthening and supporting the Social Security system... NOVAK: And you're against any variation of that?

DORGAN: Well, I happen to be for a program that says let's have Social Security-plus. Let's have accounts above Social Security that people can privately invest in stocks and bonds, of course.

NOVAK: We have to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the bombing of Vieques and President Bush's solution and whether Senator Dorgan agrees with it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: Byron Dorgan, the Bush White House surprised allies on Capitol Hill, the U.S. military, by announcing it's going to end using the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as bombing targets on Navy planes, as it had been the case for half a century.

We learned this decision was made by Karl Rove, the president's chief political operative. Is this good policy? I mean, if James Carville was in deciding Bosnia policy, would conservatives have been upset at the Clinton administration?

(LAUGHTER)

DORGAN: I don't know. Well, I suppose. But I don't know how it was made. I read the same report you did this morning.

But you know, I guess -- I support the president on this. I have not spent a lot of time on this issue, frankly, but there ought to be ways to find alternatives for the training that is done. And so, I mean, I think the president probably made the right decision here.

SHIELDS: Republicans -- shifting gears...

DORGAN: But I must say that, you know, I don't know if the report's right, but special decisions dealing with defense policy ought to be made not in terms of the political context of it, but the policy side of it. And, you know, I'll assume that that was the case, and I think the president probably made the right decision.

SHIELDS: OK. The Republicans claim that the Democrats show no urgency on the matter of energy. They've taken up a different agenda in the Senate and up on Capitol Hill.

The question is, what do the Democrats answer? I mean, people in California are facing rolling blackouts, increased prices. What's the Democrats' answer? Is it not that important, rising gas prices?

DORGAN: Well, show no urgency. I mean, you know, the price of power in California goes from $7 billion to nearly $70 billion in two years. And...

SHIELDS: Where's the legislation?

DORGAN: Well, we're trying to do price caps, wholesale price caps in California. The administration says, "No, the market is working." The market is not working. The market is fundamentally broken. You know, a free market is when you have a number of companies competing around price, but we don't have a free market, with respect to wholesale energy prices in California.

Let me just say this, I've invited Vice President Cheney to come to meet with us this Thursday at our Democratic policy luncheon. I've done that because I happen to think both parties ought to do more talking. I don't think it disserves public interest to have debates break out occasionally. You know, this whole notion, when everybody in the room is thinking the same thing, nobody is thinking very much.

Debate is good and, you know, a conflict of ideas is good, but we should do more talking. And so, I've invited Dick Cheney who was involved with their energy policy to come and visit with us this Thursday.

But look, the administration is the one that's block wholesale price caps in California. They're the ones that have persuaded FERC, who's done an imitation of a potted plant for two years, to do nothing while price caps should have been imposed, with respect to wholesale prices in California.

NOVAK: Senator, President Bush took off for his first European trip as president under a barrage of criticism from Europe on many issues. But as he has been there, the editorial opinion and the statements by the European leaders have been fairly favorable. Do you think the president has won over the Europeans on this trip?

DORGAN: Well, he hasn't won them over, but then this trip is really a kind of a get-to-know-you trip. I mean, this is the first European trip by a new president, and I think the purpose of a trip like this is to get to know other leaders. It appears from the reports that they've had some good visits. But on policy issues -- national missile defense, global warming, the Kyoto Treaty and so on -- he hasn't won over anyone.

I'm from a Scandinavian background. He even upset the Swedes. Now, that's hard to do, because we don't get upset very easily.

But I think it's probably a pretty successful trip in terms of getting to know people from all the reports, and I think that's the purpose of a trip like this.

NOVAK: You're a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Senator McCain and others have been complaining about the unrequested earmarks -- special requests for spending by senators, which Senator McCain calls pork. Now that you're in the majority, are you going to make a serious effort -- and this has been a bipartisan problem -- of keeping the pork out of the supplemental appropriations bill that's coming into the Senate now?

DORGAN: Yes, I believe we will. We had a meeting of the appropriations Democrats the other day and Senator Byrd, who's our appropriations chairman now, said, look, we're going to stick to the limit established by the president in the supplemental request, and we hope the House of Representatives will do the same. Our intention is not to load this supplemental appropriations bill up.

SHIELDS: Senator Dorgan, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas makes a lot of sense to many of us when he points out that whatever senator imposes a blackball, a blue slip, on a judicial nominee ought to be exposed, ought to take the light of day. Are Democrats going to follow common sense and Senator Gramm's lead and do this?

DORGAN: Yes, I think they should. One wonders why Senator Gramm has just now discovered this. You know, they've had playing card decks full of blue slips they've been moving into Judiciary and out of the Judiciary Committee in the last couple of years.

In fact, I happen to think we probably ought to disclose all the blue slips, and say to my friend Senator Gramm, why don't you agree with us that we'll not only disclose them all in the future, let's disclose how many you and others filed in the previous two years as well, just so we get a sense of how this was being used?

But it doesn't pay, in my judgment, to have blue slips filed secretly in the Judiciary Committee to hold up nominees. If somebody wants to try to hold somebody up, let's let that be out in the open, in my judgment.

NOVAK: We're going to have to take another break. And when we come back, we'll have "The Big Question" for Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: "The Big Question" for Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

Sir, you have been one of the great defenders of the family farm. The people who live on farms in this country is below 2 percent and falling. The farmer may be a vanishing American.

Why should the rest of us, the overwhelming majority of Americans, have to make sure that these failing farms fail (sic) when they might be better with the big companies running the farms more efficiently?

DORGAN: Well, if your income reflected what has happened to farmers' income, in other words your salary was reduced as much as farmers' have as the grain markets have collapsed, I think you would understand why it's important for us to help family farms.

They are part of the -- there are social and economic reasons to try to keep a network of producers across this country. Some would say the family farm is like the little old diner that got left behind when the interstate came through. It's just, you know, it's nice to think about it.

I think it's much more important than that. Europe maintains a network of farms and does so deliberately because they understand it strengthens Europe. We ought to do the same because it strengthens our country to have a network of food producers, families living out on our farms.

SHIELDS: You and many of the Democrats called the tax cut bill just passed as generous as any bill in history to high-income Americans, yet there's a sense of resignation. Are you going to do something to change this before it finally takes effect?

DORGAN: Look, the tax bill passed. I mean, you know, in the Senate and the House, you don't weigh votes; you count them. And at the end of the counting of the votes, they won, we lost. I regret that it was so generous to the highest income earners. I think it could have done much better for working families.

And I would much sooner have used some of that to reduce America's indebtedness. What better gift to America's kids than to be paying down federal debt?

But, you know, we've got to go from here. We're going to have to work with the budget that passed and the tax cut that passed and now go on to see if we can create good public policy in a range of other areas: education, health care, farm policy and many others.

SHIELDS: Byron Dorgan, thank you, very much for being with us.

My partner and I, Robert Novak, will be back with a comment in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: Bob, we saw a new bipartisan, statesman-like Byron Dorgan here today. He passed up the opportunity to criticize the president's flip-flop on the bombing of Vieques, as well as the reported involvement of political adviser Karl Rove in that decision. This is a different Byron Dorgan in the majority.

NOVAK: And also, Mark, he contradicted the news report that the Democrats in the Senate are going into payback mode, that they're going to investigate all these financial holdings of aides in the White House involved with energy companies. He says, they investigated us, doesn't mean we're going to investigate them. He said no, N-O, flatly to that.

SHIELDS: Now, he did so flashes of the old Byron Dorgan the populist, though, when he took on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for being a "potted plant" for two years on the California energy matter and blamed the Bush White House for opposing price caps in California.

NOVAK: He may be a liberal, but he is no ideologue. He's a smart politician. Twice, you gave him an opportunity to come out for a tax increase, rolling back the Bush tax cuts. I guarantee you, Mark, the Democrats are not going to be in a tax-increasing mode in the next political cycle.

I'm Robert Novak.

SHIELDS: I'm Mark Shields. Coming up in one-half hour on Reliable Sources, the latest on the Dale Earnhardt autopsy photos, the missing intern and the McVeigh execution.

And at 7:00 p.m. on "CAPITAL GANG," President Bush's trip to Europe, the education bill passes and the rift between Clinton and Gore.

NOVAK: That's all for now. Thanks for joining us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com