Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields
Interview With John Dingell
Aired October 19, 2002 - 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.
MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: I'm Mark Shields. Robert Novak and I will question the senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: He is Democratic Congressman John Dingell of Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Nine people killed by an unknown sniper in the Washington area led gun control advocates to press for a national system of recording ballistics characteristics.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: I think it's clear that a national ballistics fingerprint would help law enforcement, perhaps in this case, with the snipers in Maryland, certainly in many other cases as well.
NOVAK: The White House expressed interest in exploring the proposed gun fingerprinting system, but also voiced doubts about the system's feasibility.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are a variety of technical issues involved in the reliability and the accuracy of that program that bear looking into. And those issues will be explored.
NOVAK: John Dingell was elected to Congress in 1955 at age 29. For 14 years, he was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, until the Republicans took control of the House in 1994.
He has been a proponent of organized labor and critic of corporate conduct, but also a champion of gun owners' rights. Placed this year by Republican-controlled redistricting in the same Detroit area district as Democratic Congresswoman Lynn Rivers, he won nomination for a 25th term in a hard-fought primary election.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, do you agree with the NRA, the National Rifle Association, that the proposed ballistics fingerprinting system would be an invasion of privacy for gun owners?
REP. JOHN DINGELL (D), MICHIGAN: I think we ought to look at it differently. I think we ought to see whether, in fact, it works. As Deputy prime minister (UNINTELLIGIBLE) one time said, he didn't care whether the cat was white or black, he wanted to catch mice. That's what I want. If we're going to spend a lot of money to deal with the problem of 200 million guns in the country owned by 65 million gun owners, I think we ought to have a system, which, in fact, will work and catch criminals.
At this particular time, there's a lot of people talking about it, but they haven't really looked at the system. Let's look at the system. First of all, the characteristics they're talking about they say is a fingerprint. In fact, it's more like a tire print. It's subject to change with use, wear, abuse, corrosion and other things.
Beyond that, there's some very real problems. In two states in which it has been used, it hasn't caught a criminal yet. Maryland and New York. And in fact, Maryland didn't have enough money to enforce the requirements for the instant check. So as a result, they had a massive failure there.
California has suppressed study which was made for the attorney general, which showed, in fact, that this doesn't work. Now, I have no objection to exploring it. I think that's a fine idea. But let's be sure before we go off on some kind of a device to catch criminals, that, in fact, it does what we want, it catches criminals, it prevents the kind of outrageous, awful event which occurred in the Washington D.C. area.
NOVAK: Do you agree, sir, with Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, that the Beltway sniper problem is really a problem of values and not of mechanics?
DINGELL: I wouldn't say it's -- that that is a characteristic of it. I don't really know who did this, why they did it, or what was the cause, or what was the reason. All I can say is, it was a hideous event, and I think that we ought to use the best mechanisms we can to catch the fellow who did it. And also, if we're going to change the laws, let's change them as a result of this, in ways which makes it easier to catch criminals, and yet at the same time protect the Second Amendment rights of our law-abiding citizens.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, the sniper here in the Beltway area clearly has no defined targets, he's made no claims, he's made no demands. Do you see any evidence, or do you have any intuition that this sniper is part of an organized terrorist entity, either domestic or foreign?
DINGELL: My friend, Mark and Bob, like you and like everybody else, I'm praying that this evil man or men is caught. And I have no idea of who he is, why he is doing this, or what it is. He could be just a lone nut, he could be a couple of people who were, quite frankly, seriously deranged, or he could be -- he could be a terrorist. We have no way of knowing at this particular time.
SHIELDS: One piece of gun safety legislation that did pass the House unanimously was the so-called Dingell-McCarthy bill, which would prohibit the availability of semiautomatic weapons, all weapons, to people with serious mental health impairment and provide the FBI with that information for a timely check. Passed the House unanimously. And yet a single senator is holding it hostage in the Senate side. Do you know who that senator is, Mr. Dingell?
DINGELL: Well, I don't know who it is. I hope that we can persuade him to support this legislation, which, by the way, makes the instant check system work. Something which will enable us to prevent criminals from getting their hands on firearms, and something which has the capacity to, in fact, assist law enforcement officials in dealing with the kind of problems that they have got here.
I'm hopeful that we will be able to get it, because this is one of the major problems which we have. By the way, it was endorsed by leadership on both sides of the aisle and both ends of the Capitol, by the NRA and also by the gun control groups.
SHIELDS: Well, one gun control group, the Violence Policy Center, has expressed its opposition. Do you have any reason why?
DINGELL: I have no idea. There's absolutely no logic in that position. I suspect that with proper thought, they could be persuaded to see this as a useful, desirable bipartisan approach to eliminating crime, and as a step which provides us in this country with an opportunity to begin to work together to enforce the laws of this country against criminal misbehavior and against criminal misuse of firearms. I think it's a shame that they're doing this and I think they should be ashamed of themselves.
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, has blamed what he called "special interests" for blocking the passage of a ballistics identification, so-called ballistics fingerprinting bill. And he didn't mentioned it, but of course he was referring to the NRA. Do you think special interests have prevented the institution of this system?
DINGELL: I have enormous respect for Tom Daschle. I would simply observe that everybody is now trying to figure out whether this, in fact, will work. I would point out that the NRA has not yet taken a formal position on which I'm aware of on this matter, and I think Tom may be just getting a little ahead of things.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, in 1994, your party lost its majority in the House, which it held since your election in 1955. And that year, the House passed, the Democrats passed, basically, an anti-crime bill with an assault weapon ban. Many analysts in both parties attribute the loss of the party's majority that year and its continuing lack of support in rural areas for a strong anti-gun position. Do you think that has played a political price for the Democrats?
DINGELL: I don't think there's any question of it. And I think if you talk to any of my Democratic colleagues who lost that year, they would tell that gun control was one of the major contributory factors in the loss of their seats.
SHIELDS: OK. We have to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about campaign issues with the senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Dingell.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, you were the only Democrat in the Michigan delegation who in 1991 voted for the war resolution to go into the Gulf War. This year, you voted against it, even though your leader, the House minority leader, Dick Gephardt, stood shoulder to shoulder with President Bush in the Rose Garden to support the resolution. Do you think Dick Gephardt made a mistake?
DINGELL: I think they both made a mistake. I can support going in after Saddam Hussein, but I want to make sure I don't go alone. I don't think it makes sense for the United States to take on the whole world on the question of whether or not we're going after Saddam Hussein.
One of the reasons I was able to support his father was that I saw the president then had the support of the entire world, and we were then able to go in and dispose of the matter very quickly. The mistake that was made was, of course, leaving Saddam in charge of affairs over there. Right now, neither our allies, members of the Security Council, nor -- and the people in the area, none of them, support us going in there to remove Saddam Hussein. And the United States has had to modify very significantly its position on this matter.
NOVAK: But with these overwhelming votes in both the House and Senate supporting the president, Mr. Dingell, do you expect that in a relatively short amount of time the United States will be at war in Iraq?
DINGELL: I think it's altogether possible. I still think it would be a great mistake to go into a war without -- first of all, war is failure of diplomacy. And to go to war, you must always -- one of the first things you must always think of is, can you win. And this compels us to enter without basis, without support of our friends and allies, the countries that assisted us in the last undertaking are not available. The countries in the area are scared to death. They are worried about what happens afterwards. And very frankly, they think it's going to have a destabilizing effect upon the area. And more importantly, that it might stimulate terrorism.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, one more Iraq-related question. And that is, during the debate on Iraq, we now know, learned this week that the administration had known throughout that entire debate that, in fact, North Korea had a nuclear capability far ahead of that of Iraq. Do you think the failure to disclose that information will have any long- term erosion on the trust between Capitol Hill and the White House?
DINGELL: Well, if the president is failing to disclose material facts with regard to legislation being presented to the Congress on a question as important as war and peace, I think it does impair the level of trust that the House and the Senate can have for this administration.
Let's look at this. If the president is talking about an important criteria, here whether or not we're going to use force against the country which has or is developing nuclear capabilities, he's got Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and now Korea. And of course, Saddam Hussein, who is diligently working on these undertakings. How is he to explain to us that it is good to go after one and not the rest of them?
SHIELDS: OK. You won a smashing primary victory in August, despite the fact that your opponent, Lynn Rivers, was backed all-out in deep pockets of Emily's List, the pro-choice feminist group, and a number of groups that were pro-abortion rights...
DINGELL: And the anti-gunners, don't forget.
SHIELDS: OK, and the anti-gunners. Now, is your party perhaps too closely identified for all-out support on pro-choice?
DINGELL: Well, one of the things that people have forgotten about the Democratic Party, is it's a house of many mansions. And very frankly, it is a body which is extremely important in representing all kinds of people in all parts of the country who have very broad and very different views. And I think that there are those inside this party of ours which don't understand that this is, in fact, a large house which should be inclusive and should bring in all people. And that we should have the same kind of approach to government and to our situation that we expect to have our government have. And that is that we should be very tolerant of views and should function on the basis of majority rule. In that event, we would be successful. As '94 shows, sometimes we are not for the fact that we do not do that.
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, the Democratic leadership of Congress has called for Harvey Pitt to step down as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. And although you had been a strong critic of corporate conduct, I don't believe you have made that recommendation. You have called on him to name John Biggs a strong regulator. If he does not follow your recommendation, Mr. Pitt does not follow your recommendation, would you propose that he should be replaced as chairman of the SEC?
DINGELL: I'm very close to suggesting that Mr. Pitt has now served as long as he can usefully do so. It must be observed that he seems to take his foot out of his mouth only for purposes of changing feet. He has forgotten that he is a representative of the people of the United States, and is responsible for seeing to it that the securities laws are properly enforced and that the accounting industry tells the truth. I think he has forgotten that he's not on the accounting industry payroll, and very frankly, he is jeopardizing the confidence of the country, the Congress, and very frankly, the investors, in a market which, as you will note, has gone from around 11,000 to about 7,000 on the basis of vast distrust in corporate governance and in accounting.
NOVAK: Of course, we have not heard very much from the Democrats, sir, on this issue since the Corporate Reform Act was passed several weeks ago. With three -- less than three weeks before the election, doesn't this sound like a political ploy by the Democrats to try to pin (ph) up votes for the midterm election?
DINGELL: No, I don't think so. Well, look, let's understand. Everything -- everything in this country, and everything in our foreign and domestic policy is a question of issue for the American people to vote on. So I'm not troubled about the fact that this comes up at this time. I would remind you that Mr. Pitt got in trouble some months back. And I don't think that in any way it can be charged that this is political. Very frankly, if he is not doing the job, sees to it that security laws are properly enforced, it's time for him to depart. I don't view that as being political. I just believe that is something which is then in the public's interest.
SHIELDS: In the last eight years, Congressman Dingell, since losing control of the Congress, the Democrats have won back the Senate and won the White House. And yet they haven't won back the House. You've been through a tough primary in which you've prevailed. What do you think? Why do you think the Democrats in those eight years have not been able to win back a majority of the United States House of Representatives?
DINGELL: Mark, you're a wise head in this business. You and Bob watch this very carefully.
First of all, a lot of reasons. Not one. Money, we've been outspent. Now, that's not to whine about that. Very frankly, there is a tendency on the part of the American people to give those who are elected an opportunity to carry out their policies and programs. The Congress has now, as you will note from census data and from the redistrictings, become a fairly evenly divided entity. Very frankly, it's my thesis that the Democratic Party needs to look very carefully at moving towards the middle, which is where the American people are, which is where things are properly decided in a free, democratic society like the United States.
SHIELDS: OK. We have to take a break. But when we come back, for John Dingell, Robert Novak and I will have "The Big Question."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: "The Big Question" for Congressman John Dingell. Mr. Dingell, in that primary, in spite of the fact that your wife, Deborah (ph) Dingell, was chairman of the Gore campaign in Michigan, a Democratic National Committee woman, a number of leading women Democratic House members supported your opponent, including among them Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic whip who made a major contribution to your opponent's campaign. If, as expected, Dick Gephardt does run for president, would you support Nancy Pelosi for Democratic leader, against Martin Frost of Texas?
DINGELL: I'll look around to see who all is in the race. Nancy has certain abilities, but Martin Frost has great abilities. And there are a number of other candidates who might be in the race. I'll look and pick the best, and the one who can do the best job for the party.
NOVAK: You have no grudges against Nancy?
DINGELL: I'm Polish, I carry no grudges. NOVAK: Mr. Dingell, I need a prediction to close the program. After this election, will you, because of Democratic majority, once again be chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, or will you just continue as plain Mr. Dingell?
DINGELL: Well, Mr. Dingell is just plain Mr. Dingell now. And when he gets to be chairman of the Commerce Committee, he doesn't let it go to his head. However, he would like to, again, be the chairman of the Commerce Committee and thinks he would be a very, very good chairman.
NOVAK: Prediction.
DINGELL: Prediction? Prediction, the Democrats will win. I think it will be a close win, both for the House and for the Senate. And I think that we will begin to see some real efforts made to do things like protecting Social Security and Medicare, see to it that we'll do what needs to be done with regard to getting a decent balanced budget, and see to it that we take care of the other concerns of the people of this nation.
NOVAK: John Dingell, you've been around even longer than I have. Thank you very much. Mark Shields and I will be back with a comment after these messages.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: John, Bob Novak, John Dingell, 47 years in the House of Representatives, has a reputation for pulling no punches. He pulled no punches tonight. He blames his party's demise in large part upon its obsession, flirtation over -- infatuation with the cultural and social issues, and getting away from those economic issues most families live by.
NOVAK: And that includes the Second Amendment rights. He is a strong supporter of those. He clearly doesn't think that this ballistics fingerprinting that everybody is slobbering over is going to work in prevent the sniper -- so he says let's take a careful look at it, which makes sense.
SHIELDS: Well, I'll say this, he didn't have any comforting words for Harvey Pitt, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When John Dingell weighs in against you, you know this is more than a press release. That's pretty serious stuff. He found him at fault for not doing the public's business.
NOVAK: Mark, when I came here in 1957 with the Associated Press, the only member of Congress who's still there -- the only member of the House of Representatives that's still there is John Dingell. He was a powerful chairman for many years. They don't have too many guys like that around any more. Believe me.
SHIELDS: No, that's true.
NOVAK: I'm Robert Novak.
SHIELDS: I'm Mark Shields.
NOVAK: Coming up at 7:00 p.m. Eastern on "CAPITAL GANG," gun control comes to the forefront in the wake of the Washington, D.C. area sniper. North Korea admits it has a nuclear weapons program. And we look at one of the hottest U.S. Senate races, South Dakota. Our guest is Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.
SHIELDS: Thank you 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
Aired October 19, 2002 - 17:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARK SHIELDS, CO-HOST: I'm Mark Shields. Robert Novak and I will question the senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: He is Democratic Congressman John Dingell of Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Nine people killed by an unknown sniper in the Washington area led gun control advocates to press for a national system of recording ballistics characteristics.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: I think it's clear that a national ballistics fingerprint would help law enforcement, perhaps in this case, with the snipers in Maryland, certainly in many other cases as well.
NOVAK: The White House expressed interest in exploring the proposed gun fingerprinting system, but also voiced doubts about the system's feasibility.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are a variety of technical issues involved in the reliability and the accuracy of that program that bear looking into. And those issues will be explored.
NOVAK: John Dingell was elected to Congress in 1955 at age 29. For 14 years, he was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, until the Republicans took control of the House in 1994.
He has been a proponent of organized labor and critic of corporate conduct, but also a champion of gun owners' rights. Placed this year by Republican-controlled redistricting in the same Detroit area district as Democratic Congresswoman Lynn Rivers, he won nomination for a 25th term in a hard-fought primary election.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, do you agree with the NRA, the National Rifle Association, that the proposed ballistics fingerprinting system would be an invasion of privacy for gun owners?
REP. JOHN DINGELL (D), MICHIGAN: I think we ought to look at it differently. I think we ought to see whether, in fact, it works. As Deputy prime minister (UNINTELLIGIBLE) one time said, he didn't care whether the cat was white or black, he wanted to catch mice. That's what I want. If we're going to spend a lot of money to deal with the problem of 200 million guns in the country owned by 65 million gun owners, I think we ought to have a system, which, in fact, will work and catch criminals.
At this particular time, there's a lot of people talking about it, but they haven't really looked at the system. Let's look at the system. First of all, the characteristics they're talking about they say is a fingerprint. In fact, it's more like a tire print. It's subject to change with use, wear, abuse, corrosion and other things.
Beyond that, there's some very real problems. In two states in which it has been used, it hasn't caught a criminal yet. Maryland and New York. And in fact, Maryland didn't have enough money to enforce the requirements for the instant check. So as a result, they had a massive failure there.
California has suppressed study which was made for the attorney general, which showed, in fact, that this doesn't work. Now, I have no objection to exploring it. I think that's a fine idea. But let's be sure before we go off on some kind of a device to catch criminals, that, in fact, it does what we want, it catches criminals, it prevents the kind of outrageous, awful event which occurred in the Washington D.C. area.
NOVAK: Do you agree, sir, with Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, that the Beltway sniper problem is really a problem of values and not of mechanics?
DINGELL: I wouldn't say it's -- that that is a characteristic of it. I don't really know who did this, why they did it, or what was the cause, or what was the reason. All I can say is, it was a hideous event, and I think that we ought to use the best mechanisms we can to catch the fellow who did it. And also, if we're going to change the laws, let's change them as a result of this, in ways which makes it easier to catch criminals, and yet at the same time protect the Second Amendment rights of our law-abiding citizens.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, the sniper here in the Beltway area clearly has no defined targets, he's made no claims, he's made no demands. Do you see any evidence, or do you have any intuition that this sniper is part of an organized terrorist entity, either domestic or foreign?
DINGELL: My friend, Mark and Bob, like you and like everybody else, I'm praying that this evil man or men is caught. And I have no idea of who he is, why he is doing this, or what it is. He could be just a lone nut, he could be a couple of people who were, quite frankly, seriously deranged, or he could be -- he could be a terrorist. We have no way of knowing at this particular time.
SHIELDS: One piece of gun safety legislation that did pass the House unanimously was the so-called Dingell-McCarthy bill, which would prohibit the availability of semiautomatic weapons, all weapons, to people with serious mental health impairment and provide the FBI with that information for a timely check. Passed the House unanimously. And yet a single senator is holding it hostage in the Senate side. Do you know who that senator is, Mr. Dingell?
DINGELL: Well, I don't know who it is. I hope that we can persuade him to support this legislation, which, by the way, makes the instant check system work. Something which will enable us to prevent criminals from getting their hands on firearms, and something which has the capacity to, in fact, assist law enforcement officials in dealing with the kind of problems that they have got here.
I'm hopeful that we will be able to get it, because this is one of the major problems which we have. By the way, it was endorsed by leadership on both sides of the aisle and both ends of the Capitol, by the NRA and also by the gun control groups.
SHIELDS: Well, one gun control group, the Violence Policy Center, has expressed its opposition. Do you have any reason why?
DINGELL: I have no idea. There's absolutely no logic in that position. I suspect that with proper thought, they could be persuaded to see this as a useful, desirable bipartisan approach to eliminating crime, and as a step which provides us in this country with an opportunity to begin to work together to enforce the laws of this country against criminal misbehavior and against criminal misuse of firearms. I think it's a shame that they're doing this and I think they should be ashamed of themselves.
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, has blamed what he called "special interests" for blocking the passage of a ballistics identification, so-called ballistics fingerprinting bill. And he didn't mentioned it, but of course he was referring to the NRA. Do you think special interests have prevented the institution of this system?
DINGELL: I have enormous respect for Tom Daschle. I would simply observe that everybody is now trying to figure out whether this, in fact, will work. I would point out that the NRA has not yet taken a formal position on which I'm aware of on this matter, and I think Tom may be just getting a little ahead of things.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, in 1994, your party lost its majority in the House, which it held since your election in 1955. And that year, the House passed, the Democrats passed, basically, an anti-crime bill with an assault weapon ban. Many analysts in both parties attribute the loss of the party's majority that year and its continuing lack of support in rural areas for a strong anti-gun position. Do you think that has played a political price for the Democrats?
DINGELL: I don't think there's any question of it. And I think if you talk to any of my Democratic colleagues who lost that year, they would tell that gun control was one of the major contributory factors in the loss of their seats.
SHIELDS: OK. We have to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about campaign issues with the senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Dingell.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, you were the only Democrat in the Michigan delegation who in 1991 voted for the war resolution to go into the Gulf War. This year, you voted against it, even though your leader, the House minority leader, Dick Gephardt, stood shoulder to shoulder with President Bush in the Rose Garden to support the resolution. Do you think Dick Gephardt made a mistake?
DINGELL: I think they both made a mistake. I can support going in after Saddam Hussein, but I want to make sure I don't go alone. I don't think it makes sense for the United States to take on the whole world on the question of whether or not we're going after Saddam Hussein.
One of the reasons I was able to support his father was that I saw the president then had the support of the entire world, and we were then able to go in and dispose of the matter very quickly. The mistake that was made was, of course, leaving Saddam in charge of affairs over there. Right now, neither our allies, members of the Security Council, nor -- and the people in the area, none of them, support us going in there to remove Saddam Hussein. And the United States has had to modify very significantly its position on this matter.
NOVAK: But with these overwhelming votes in both the House and Senate supporting the president, Mr. Dingell, do you expect that in a relatively short amount of time the United States will be at war in Iraq?
DINGELL: I think it's altogether possible. I still think it would be a great mistake to go into a war without -- first of all, war is failure of diplomacy. And to go to war, you must always -- one of the first things you must always think of is, can you win. And this compels us to enter without basis, without support of our friends and allies, the countries that assisted us in the last undertaking are not available. The countries in the area are scared to death. They are worried about what happens afterwards. And very frankly, they think it's going to have a destabilizing effect upon the area. And more importantly, that it might stimulate terrorism.
SHIELDS: Mr. Dingell, one more Iraq-related question. And that is, during the debate on Iraq, we now know, learned this week that the administration had known throughout that entire debate that, in fact, North Korea had a nuclear capability far ahead of that of Iraq. Do you think the failure to disclose that information will have any long- term erosion on the trust between Capitol Hill and the White House?
DINGELL: Well, if the president is failing to disclose material facts with regard to legislation being presented to the Congress on a question as important as war and peace, I think it does impair the level of trust that the House and the Senate can have for this administration.
Let's look at this. If the president is talking about an important criteria, here whether or not we're going to use force against the country which has or is developing nuclear capabilities, he's got Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and now Korea. And of course, Saddam Hussein, who is diligently working on these undertakings. How is he to explain to us that it is good to go after one and not the rest of them?
SHIELDS: OK. You won a smashing primary victory in August, despite the fact that your opponent, Lynn Rivers, was backed all-out in deep pockets of Emily's List, the pro-choice feminist group, and a number of groups that were pro-abortion rights...
DINGELL: And the anti-gunners, don't forget.
SHIELDS: OK, and the anti-gunners. Now, is your party perhaps too closely identified for all-out support on pro-choice?
DINGELL: Well, one of the things that people have forgotten about the Democratic Party, is it's a house of many mansions. And very frankly, it is a body which is extremely important in representing all kinds of people in all parts of the country who have very broad and very different views. And I think that there are those inside this party of ours which don't understand that this is, in fact, a large house which should be inclusive and should bring in all people. And that we should have the same kind of approach to government and to our situation that we expect to have our government have. And that is that we should be very tolerant of views and should function on the basis of majority rule. In that event, we would be successful. As '94 shows, sometimes we are not for the fact that we do not do that.
NOVAK: Congressman Dingell, the Democratic leadership of Congress has called for Harvey Pitt to step down as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. And although you had been a strong critic of corporate conduct, I don't believe you have made that recommendation. You have called on him to name John Biggs a strong regulator. If he does not follow your recommendation, Mr. Pitt does not follow your recommendation, would you propose that he should be replaced as chairman of the SEC?
DINGELL: I'm very close to suggesting that Mr. Pitt has now served as long as he can usefully do so. It must be observed that he seems to take his foot out of his mouth only for purposes of changing feet. He has forgotten that he is a representative of the people of the United States, and is responsible for seeing to it that the securities laws are properly enforced and that the accounting industry tells the truth. I think he has forgotten that he's not on the accounting industry payroll, and very frankly, he is jeopardizing the confidence of the country, the Congress, and very frankly, the investors, in a market which, as you will note, has gone from around 11,000 to about 7,000 on the basis of vast distrust in corporate governance and in accounting.
NOVAK: Of course, we have not heard very much from the Democrats, sir, on this issue since the Corporate Reform Act was passed several weeks ago. With three -- less than three weeks before the election, doesn't this sound like a political ploy by the Democrats to try to pin (ph) up votes for the midterm election?
DINGELL: No, I don't think so. Well, look, let's understand. Everything -- everything in this country, and everything in our foreign and domestic policy is a question of issue for the American people to vote on. So I'm not troubled about the fact that this comes up at this time. I would remind you that Mr. Pitt got in trouble some months back. And I don't think that in any way it can be charged that this is political. Very frankly, if he is not doing the job, sees to it that security laws are properly enforced, it's time for him to depart. I don't view that as being political. I just believe that is something which is then in the public's interest.
SHIELDS: In the last eight years, Congressman Dingell, since losing control of the Congress, the Democrats have won back the Senate and won the White House. And yet they haven't won back the House. You've been through a tough primary in which you've prevailed. What do you think? Why do you think the Democrats in those eight years have not been able to win back a majority of the United States House of Representatives?
DINGELL: Mark, you're a wise head in this business. You and Bob watch this very carefully.
First of all, a lot of reasons. Not one. Money, we've been outspent. Now, that's not to whine about that. Very frankly, there is a tendency on the part of the American people to give those who are elected an opportunity to carry out their policies and programs. The Congress has now, as you will note from census data and from the redistrictings, become a fairly evenly divided entity. Very frankly, it's my thesis that the Democratic Party needs to look very carefully at moving towards the middle, which is where the American people are, which is where things are properly decided in a free, democratic society like the United States.
SHIELDS: OK. We have to take a break. But when we come back, for John Dingell, Robert Novak and I will have "The Big Question."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: "The Big Question" for Congressman John Dingell. Mr. Dingell, in that primary, in spite of the fact that your wife, Deborah (ph) Dingell, was chairman of the Gore campaign in Michigan, a Democratic National Committee woman, a number of leading women Democratic House members supported your opponent, including among them Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic whip who made a major contribution to your opponent's campaign. If, as expected, Dick Gephardt does run for president, would you support Nancy Pelosi for Democratic leader, against Martin Frost of Texas?
DINGELL: I'll look around to see who all is in the race. Nancy has certain abilities, but Martin Frost has great abilities. And there are a number of other candidates who might be in the race. I'll look and pick the best, and the one who can do the best job for the party.
NOVAK: You have no grudges against Nancy?
DINGELL: I'm Polish, I carry no grudges. NOVAK: Mr. Dingell, I need a prediction to close the program. After this election, will you, because of Democratic majority, once again be chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, or will you just continue as plain Mr. Dingell?
DINGELL: Well, Mr. Dingell is just plain Mr. Dingell now. And when he gets to be chairman of the Commerce Committee, he doesn't let it go to his head. However, he would like to, again, be the chairman of the Commerce Committee and thinks he would be a very, very good chairman.
NOVAK: Prediction.
DINGELL: Prediction? Prediction, the Democrats will win. I think it will be a close win, both for the House and for the Senate. And I think that we will begin to see some real efforts made to do things like protecting Social Security and Medicare, see to it that we'll do what needs to be done with regard to getting a decent balanced budget, and see to it that we take care of the other concerns of the people of this nation.
NOVAK: John Dingell, you've been around even longer than I have. Thank you very much. Mark Shields and I will be back with a comment after these messages.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SHIELDS: John, Bob Novak, John Dingell, 47 years in the House of Representatives, has a reputation for pulling no punches. He pulled no punches tonight. He blames his party's demise in large part upon its obsession, flirtation over -- infatuation with the cultural and social issues, and getting away from those economic issues most families live by.
NOVAK: And that includes the Second Amendment rights. He is a strong supporter of those. He clearly doesn't think that this ballistics fingerprinting that everybody is slobbering over is going to work in prevent the sniper -- so he says let's take a careful look at it, which makes sense.
SHIELDS: Well, I'll say this, he didn't have any comforting words for Harvey Pitt, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When John Dingell weighs in against you, you know this is more than a press release. That's pretty serious stuff. He found him at fault for not doing the public's business.
NOVAK: Mark, when I came here in 1957 with the Associated Press, the only member of Congress who's still there -- the only member of the House of Representatives that's still there is John Dingell. He was a powerful chairman for many years. They don't have too many guys like that around any more. Believe me.
SHIELDS: No, that's true.
NOVAK: I'm Robert Novak.
SHIELDS: I'm Mark Shields.
NOVAK: Coming up at 7:00 p.m. Eastern on "CAPITAL GANG," gun control comes to the forefront in the wake of the Washington, D.C. area sniper. North Korea admits it has a nuclear weapons program. And we look at one of the hottest U.S. Senate races, South Dakota. Our guest is Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.
SHIELDS: Thank you 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
