Senator Dick Saslaw: The Past, Present, and Future of the General Assembly
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Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
My name is Michael Pope. And we are joined by the majority leader of the Virginia Senate, Dick Saslaw. Thanks for joining us.
Dick Saslaw
Mike, thanks for having me.
Michael Pope
I am so glad that you came to join us and talk about your career in the Virginia General Assembly. I want to start by talking about the role as majority leader for our listeners who aren't familiar with the majority. I'm going to ask you this question in a strange way, kind of a trick question, which, when you arrive in the Senate, the majority leader was a guy named Hunter Andrews. Explain how Hunter Andrews led the State Senate.
Dick Saslaw
Well, he did it pretty much in unison with Senator Willie, who was the president pro temp and Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. And in those days, everything went according to how they wanted it to go. And they weren't much for dissent,
Michael Pope
Explained that everything went the way they wanted it to go. How did that happen?
Dick Saslaw
Well, when I got there, it was like 35 Democrats and 5 Republicans. The Democrats, then we're all closer ideologically towards the center. And you had the group that was in charge. I mean, it was, if you wanted to get anything done, you had to work with them. Otherwise, you couldn't get anything done.
Michael Pope
Now, I asked you the question about what it means to be a majority leader through the lens of, like, how did Hunter Andrews run it? You're now in charge of the Senate. How would you say your leadership style is different from Hunter Andrew's?
Dick Saslaw
Well, I've got to put up with a lot more dissension on both sides; you know, ideological considerations have become major. So you're dealing with a lot of people who campaigned on extremely liberal issues and people who've campaigned on extremely conservative, and it's gotten harder as time goes by to find the middle ground. That's agreeable to everyone. There are an awful lot of bills that are passing on straight party-line votes. We didn't used to have that. Granted, there were only 5 Republicans then. But even as their numbers grew, you still had a general consensus.
Michael Pope
Why do you think that is that everything is sort of party line now, but it wasn't in 1980?
Dick Saslaw
Well, to some degree, the advent of these new social networks on telephones and computers has served to give voice to people who probably didn't have one. But on the other hand, they are becoming a controlling factor in who gets elected or nominated to run for office. And that's the problem that you see. When I first got elected, if you needed to raise taxes, you raised them, and they passed pretty much without dissent. You need to make budget cuts; you made them, and they passed pretty much without dissent. Budgets in those days would pass 39 and 1. They had a rule that my minority vote would always be represented on a conference committee, but that was planned ahead of schedule. Chuck Colgan would always cast a no vote on the floor. And it would be two pros, Ed Willie and Chuck Cogan, but when they got into the conference, they all did what Willie wanted.
Michael Pope
I want to take you further back in time a bit here to the year 1974 When there was a Republican representing Northern Virginia, Stan Paris, and you decided that you wanted to run against Stan Paris. So there was a Democratic primary that included Fairfax supervisor Herb Harris, Delegate Frank Mann, former Mayor here in Alexandria, and then a 34-year-old guy no one had heard of called Dick Saslaw. Why did you run for Congress in 1974?
Dick Saslaw
I thought that this was something that I could do and do well. And I thought that, well, since we don't have any incumbent, I'm going to take a whack at this. And it was there was a bit of naivety there. And it showed up; I came in third. And you know, it's funny, growing up as a kid, we all ate man's potato chips. And that was Frank Mann's family's business.
Michael Pope
So what was that like knocking on doors trying to get people to? I mean, you had no name recognition back then, so it was probably difficult to raise money. What was that like?
Dick Saslaw
It was pretty much what you would imagine: kind of going nowhere fast.
Michael Pope
But as it turns out, Paris was...
Dick Saslaw
Defeated by Herb Harris,
Michael Pope
Eventually defeated by Herb Harris, but then made a comeback
Dick Saslaw
ln 1980.
Michael Pope
And you also tried to run against him in 1984. So by that time, of course, you had made a name for yourself; you got the nomination. You'd like to compare yourself to Rocky on the campaign trail. Although you had a difficult time raising money here against the incumbent.
Dick Saslaw
Interestingly enough, that was Reagan's landslide over Mondale, and I went through all the congressional races. And mine, Believe it or not, even though I lost my 10 points, was one of the 10 closest races against an incumbent in the country. Or nine points on lost mine.
Michael Pope
You had a radio spot where you compared Stan Paris to Jerry Falwell and the John Birch Society.
Dick Saslaw
Well, he had taken some of their positions.
Michael Pope
Nuclear Freeze, he was against the nuclear Freeze, he was against the Voting Rights Act. And that commercial was seen as kind of edgy for 1984. I mean, people, I think, wouldn't think too much of it today. But in 1984, that was seen as kind of it was factual. So why push the envelope that way?
Dick Saslaw
Don't you think we needed a Voting Rights Act? It just, it's the way things were. And like I said, I mean, I spent a lot of time campaigning, knocking on doors for about 45%, 46% of the vote.
Michael Pope
And so you eventually got yourself elected to the House of Delegates.
Dick Saslaw
And was before that, t
Michael Pope
Yeah, I was actually moving around a little bit because I wanted to hit different points.
Dick Saslaw
You're the northern ones where I lost.
Michael Pope
Well, let's get to somewhere you want, Senator. So, when you were first elected to the House of Delegates,
Dick Saslaw
'75
Michael Pope
In 1975, so you showed up in January 1976. Describe that. So, starting with the Speaker of the House.
Dick Saslaw
Well, let me tell you about my very first meeting. In those days, they used to fill up the Senate of the House Appropriations Committee with all of the real conservative, a lot of old Bryd people, okay. Tom Rothrock was one of our; Fairfax had two five-member districts, which later the Supreme Court said we couldn't do; it had to be a single member. And he put in a resolution. This was the night before I got sworn in; that said that, since there were 20 people on a committee and 10 congressional districts, we didn't have the 11th, so there would be two members on the committee from each congressional district. And one of the members, and I don't want to give you his name, it's not necessary at this point. Got up, looked at this, and said, This is communist crap from Northern Virginia. And all the Delegates from outside Northern Virginia all start yelling communist crap from Northern Virginia. And I sat down because I had spoken, you know, in favor of it. And I said to the guy next to me, I said, God, what have I got myself into? He says, Welcome to the Democratic Party, the Democratic House of Delegates. And that's the way it was, and if you came from the north to the Occoquan River, they assumed you were communists. They often referred to Dick Hopson, who got elected with me. He was from Alexandria, a lawyer with a firm that ultimately became part, I think, McGuire Woods. He was a real estate lawyer as a Delegate from the People's Republic of Alexandria. I mean, they weren't supposed to do that. But they did. And
Michael Pope
There's some truth to that.
Dick Saslaw
Oh, well, I could get into that. But I mean, it was just a different error. The Speaker was John Warren Cook. He was the son of a Civil War veteran, not the grandson, but the son; his father was 78 when he was born in 1915. And there was a lot of that where the first wife had died or passed away. And they remarried a lot younger women and had children. And my understanding was the last Civil War, the last offspring of a Civil War veteran, only died three years ago. Somebody told me about two or three years ago that Ken Plum, I, and Bobby Scott were the only three people left in the US in office who served with a guy whose father fought in the Civil War. And, of course, after January 10th, it'll just be Congressman Scott.
Michael Pope
So, sticking with your time in the House of Delegates, briefly, so you're there for two terms. Cook is the Speaker of the House. At that time, Democrats not only did have a majority, but no buddy living could remember a time when Republicans had the majority. They had what seemed, at the time, like a permanent majority, and they kind of took a dim view of Republicans, right? How did the Democratic majority treat Republicans?
Dick Saslaw
I got there. And in January of '76, there were 81 Democrats in the House of Delegates, then two independents, Lacey Putney and Barney Gone, and 17 Republicans. And you know, they didn't get very good committee assignments or anything else. But quite frankly, it was the Republicans, then, who were the racial moderates, not the Democrats. And the transition from the old Bryd machine to essentially the Democratic Party today was if I had to put it on for five people. It would be John Warren Cook, obviously, would be one. He was our first nonsegregation speaker, Chuck Robb, who became lieutenant governor in '77; this was all during the '77 election, Hunter Andrews, and yes, even Phil Pot, who did support massive resistance this first year up there, but over the years had changed. Quite frankly, AL was one of the most brilliant people I've ever met; he and Hunter, and gradually, the party transitioned more to where they are today. In fact, when Moss ran for the House of Delegates back in the late '60s, his campaign slogan was Let's get Virginia to the Bryd cage.
A forward-looking campaign slogan for the time. Yeah. So you spent two terms in the House of Delegates for four years and over to the State Senate. Describe the difference in sort of not just mood but how stuff operates in the house. You know, there are so many more House members, and the mood in the Senate is a little different.
Some more open ideas there. In the Senate, it was the way Ed Willie wanted it, essentially. That was.
Michael Pope
Well, let me ask you about Ed Willie. There's a great new book I would commend to our listeners by Bill Lighty, who we've had on the show. And he has a really interesting anecdote. There are many anecdotes actually about Ed Willie, but one that struck me had to do with the budget process where he was Lighty was a young staffer to Senator Willie. So there's this anecdote about Willie's taking a look at the budget. And then he stops and points at this one part. And he insisted that Bill lightly insert an error like there was not an error there, but he insisted that Lighty add an error to the budget so that the House Appropriations Chairman could fix the error and so that he could Willie could stroke the ego a little bit of the House Appropriations chairman and sort of get something in negotiations.
Dick Saslaw
That would have been Dick Bagley at the time.
Michael Pope
Okay, so that's it's really interesting anecdote to me intentionally inserting an error in the budget for the sole purpose of stroking the ego...
Dick Saslaw
I did not know that.
Michael Pope
Stroking the ego of the House Appropriations chairman and also getting some leverage in negotiations. Did you see stuff like this going on? I'm sure there. I mean, not that particular.
Dick Saslaw
I was not on the money committee. And so the answer is no.
Michael Pope
You didn't see this particular thing. But are there other things that you've seen in your years there?
Dick Saslaw
Now, if you had a bill out on the floor, and Ed Willie didn't like it. He is essential to a hitman. One was Senator Wilder from Richmond, and the other was Senator Andrews. If one of them got up on your bill, it was the end of it. Okay, you knew it was the end of it. And one of the things I remember, you know, about Willie, Ray Garlin was a moderate Republican; he came over from the House the same year I did. That was the year the 30-year ground lease was up on all the buildings around the Capitol that had been negotiated in 1950. Okay, and it gives you an idea of what good deals there were; the old city hall was $250,000. That whole big building, remember, was negotiated three years prior. Okay, which then would have seemed like a tremendous sum of money. So, in fact, one of the lobbyists wanted to buy it and turn it into condos. But anyways, so when we exercise that option on all the buildings around Capitol Square, including the one we're currently operating, kind of out of Pocahontas, all those buildings were up. And Willie had them all in the budget to buy them, and they were all essentially steals. The bill gets out on the floor. And Ray Garland got up and put in a budget amendment to take it all out. He said we don't need to be expanding government at this time. Ed Willie got up and said, I've been listening to the new Senator from Roanoke. And he makes a lot of sense. He said so much so that when I get into the conference, I'm going to take out the three and a half million I put in for that new library over in Roanoke, where he comes from. Well, as he was speaking, Garland got up and went and asked Chuck Robb to give him his min floor amendment back. Then he got up, and now he had withdrawn the amendment. Okay. Willie got his point across.
Michael Pope
You mentioned conference committees; these happen. They're not open to the public. They're not open to the press. People who listen to this podcast know that I complain about this all the time because this is not an open government. What's your take on that? Does it work better? Because it's not open to the public? Or what's the value of not when you
Dick Saslaw
When you say no, open public? Give me an example?
Michael Pope
Well, if I wanted to come to the conference committee on the budget, I can't do that. Because it's not open to the public. It's not open to the press. And I recognize oftentimes, these conference committees are not actual meetings that happened at specific times. But they could be.
Dick Saslaw
Yeah, well, one of the reasons is that things change, and you don't want things going out there that don't occur. Okay. That's why you don't see that. Or why you don't open it up to the press. And so many discussions that are private that, I mean, if you open that up to the public, it would take us two years to get a budget through. And I give you another Ed Willie story. In my first year in the Senate, Abe Brault was chair of education and health. Abe had to go up to Northern Virginia for something and couldn't be at a meeting. Ed Willie took it over. And there was a fairly controversial bill, and I remember telling Willie telling people because Senate room B was packed. And he said if you have something original to say, get up; if you don't doubt, we don't need to keep hearing the same thing over and over. Well, every time somebody starts doing that, repeating all the stuff that we heard before when we tell them to sit down. So this one woman yelled out, she was sitting about three, four rows back from the front center, Senator, you're unfair. Willie motions to the Capitol policeman, bring her up here. And she was kind of terrified. And cop, she was sitting about three or four seats and about three rows back. Yes, I ordered her up to where we sat. And Willie hands her or got someone to hand her and says, "Ma'am, this is a copy of the Virginia constitution. He says I want you to take a look through there and show me where it says I have to be fair". We all laughed. He didn't like that either. But she didn't say another word and a guy escorted her back to her seat.
Michael Pope
Well, actually, you have just reminded me of lots of commentary on your leadership style, Senator Saslaw. So I want to quote Senator Bill Mims, who described your leadership style this way, "if He intends to stab you, he'll come at you at the front, not the back." What does that mean? Why did Senator Mims say that?
Dick Saslaw
I don't believe in stabbing people in the back?
Michael Pope
Give an example.
Dick Saslaw
Well, when somebody has a bill that I don't like, I go over and talk, write to him, and tell him what I think generally do. I generally don't surprise him on the floor, particularly if it's a bill that they've invested a lot in. Okay, That's all. I don't go around and tell everybody, vote against this, vote against this. I get up, and I let him know right from the start where I am. That's my style.
Michael Pope
And would you say that's a popular style in the Senate or that?
Dick Saslaw
Well, some do. Some don't. Depends on, you know, nobody's ever accused me of being shy and bashful.
Michael Pope
To that end. Another quote I've got here is Senator Warren Berry said that you're more of a street fighter than a Virginia gentleman. What does that mean?
Dick Saslaw
That is pretty much what you would think it would mean.
Michael Pope
With it, the Virginia gentleman might sort of disguise things in a way or soften that maybe.
Dick Saslaw
No, I mean, I, I try not to, you know, insult people, things like that. But I generally, I mean, I really believe in something strongly, and they know it.
Michael Pope
That's pretty clear, just from our conversation here today. So I want to ask you about other leaders. So we talked a little bit about Hunter Andrews and your time there, Chuck Hogan, and Walter Stosh.
Dick Saslaw
These are all good people. They really were.
Michael Pope
Tell me about their leadership styles.
Dick Saslaw
Well, they all looked for the middle ground, which is something you don't see a lot of today. But they want it to be a success. And Stosh and Colgan.
Michael Pope
Don't you kind of have to do that if you're a leader to look for a middle ground?
Dick Saslaw
You should, but a lot of them don't. I don't want to get into names, but a lot of them don't.
Michael Pope
Well, without getting into names. What do you mean by that?
Dick Saslaw
Well, you know, you can, let's say you've got a fairly controversial situation. You can look to try to maybe soften it a little. Or you can say the hell with you; I'm gonna do it anyway. These are guys that wanted; they were more interested in some type of general agreement. And trying to ram something through over the objections, some people now some bills, obviously, you know, you either gotta go one way or the other. There's no middle ground; I realize that. But so much of the legislation is susceptible to that.
Michael Pope
I would imagine your time as a senator before you became a leader; you were looking at the leader and maybe not always agreeing with what they did or their style, right?
Dick Saslaw
I didn't have a problem with leaders. When I was there. In the Senate, Hunter Andrews till he became lieutenant governor, Doug Wilder, Ed Willie, I really didn't have a problem with them. And generally speaking with the Democratic Committee Chairman that we have today in the Senate, I generally have not had a problem.
Michael Pope
Well, you described it earlier as more of a top-down kind of model where the leadership had an idea of what they wanted to happen, and then they made it happen. I would imagine if there was a time when you found yourself disagreeing with that, it might be kind of an uncomfortable situation, right?
Dick Saslaw
Well, I don't let anything get me down. So you know, if you don't win on one, you just move on to the next one.
Michael Pope
And I'm also curious about your time dealing with all the different governors because of our system with four years in, four years out, you've seen a number of them kind of go.
Dick Saslaw
This is the 13th.
Michael Pope
13th okay. All right. So I'm not going to ask you about all of them. But I'm curious about their different operating styles, especially their interactions with the General Assembly; I would imagine some of them are more hands-on micromanaging. Some of them are more hands-off. Right. So, what describes the different styles.
Dick Saslaw
Baliles and Rob were more hands-on, and Dalton and Godwin may have been a little more hands-on. I think so was Warner when he was governor. And Kaine, they seem to work well, and McDonald's tried as well. This governor is a little different than the rest in that he's got his own set of ideas. And I've not had a lot of communication with him. I mean, it's not that he's a Republican. It's just maybe his style. I had a fair amount of communication with Alan and McDonnell, maybe not as much with Gilmore.
Michael Pope
Most of those people you just named have a long history personal history in the General Assembly as members.
Dick Saslaw
Except for Warner, and that may have been part of the situation, but I remember I had to build and alter the liquor by the drink ratio. You used to have the word meals, and it had to be 50% Alcohol, 50% meals. Like if you went into a restaurant, you ordered a $40 bottle of wine, And you had a $20 dinner; if you and your wife each had a $20 dinner, no problem. If that bottle of wine costs $45, or $50 bucks, or $60 Bucks, there is a big problem: the owner could lose his license even though he's not selling any more alcohol, okay? I changed the word meals to food and made the new ratio 55:45, 55% booze, 45% food. And then, in 1988, we took beer and wine out of the equation together. So effectively, while the law still reads 55:45, It really is like 83:17. But when I went up to Vince Callahan, you know, knocked on, and she told me, let's go out and talk, make sure the governor will sign it. And he and I went up to see Dalton. I never forgot the conversation. Dalton had pointed out that as a state senator, he voted against liquor by the drink. And he said it was the worst vote ever cast. And he says if you get it up here because it was, we hadn't cleared it on the floor yet. He says I'll sign it. And it passed. And I'll never forget he called me up and said, Please don't ask for a public signing ceremony. He says I'm gonna sign it. But don't ask for a public sign. And so I did. And he signed it.
Michael Pope
On the topic of alcohol. I think I read also that you had a bill that raised the drinking age from 18 to 21.
Dick Saslaw
Yes, yes, we were required to do that by Congress. If not, you stand the chance of losing your federal highway funds. So I put the bill in 1985. That raised it from 18 to 21. Had we not done that way. And that's why all the states did do that. Because they would have lost all their interstate money. And, you know, federal highway money that you get for primary roads, Route 29, on Route 50, Lee highway, you know, things like that. But anyway. That's why I did that. And that the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers were also pushing that as well, which is why Congress did what it did.
Michael Pope
Speaking of the '80s, 1988 was the last time that Senators got a raise, right? Tell me a little bit about that. And why do you think it is so much time has gone by that you guys have kept the same salary.
Dick Saslaw
We got a bill out on the floor a few years ago, and it went down 24 to 18, 24 to 16, something like that. But, uh, they just didn't want to do it. And you know, I don't have a problem. I could do it; I could work for free because I'm lucky. But what you're ultimately going to wind up with me, here's Maryland, they meet 90 days every year, and they're over there slightly over $50,000 a year. And we meet 60 days one year, and effectively 46 and x; although you're down an awful lot on various meetings, you are paid separately for that. But you're going to wind up with either the general sum it's gonna be made up of retired people, spouses that don't work, or young people occasionally that may be living at home with their folks. I don't think you're going to have a representative-type governor, a truly representative government paying $18,000 a year. That's the problem.
Michael Pope
But then you have to get over the hurdle of being attacked for wanting to raise your own salary. Right?
Dick Saslaw
Thats right. But let me tell you, if you can't defend, let's say they raise it from $18,000 to $30,000. Now, it was recommended about 10 years ago that we go to $26,000. So, of course, a lot of time, had we indexed it to inflation, our salary would have been over about $37,000 or $38,000. But let's say we raise it to $28,000. If you couldn't defend a 50%. Pay increase of almost 50. Well, a little more than a 50% pay increase, divided over 35 years. There's something wrong with you. Okay. You're talking about 1.5% a year.
Michael Pope
I want to ask you about how things have changed over your time and the Senate in a number of different ways, starting with the budget impasse. And we currently have this budget impasse where we don't have amendments. We've gotten to your budget, but there are no amendments to it.
Dick Saslaw
Part of the thing you have to remember is a sense of urgency is not quite where you would think because we passed a biennial budget. So the state's not going to cease to run by not resolving; that that happened in 2001 Gilmore.
Michael Pope
That was actually the next question I was going to ask you...
Dick Saslaw
It happened once before.
Michael Pope
So that was when Republicans controlled everything. The House controlled the Senate, they had the governor, and the Republicans could not agree with themselves about this. This is more of a partisan thing that's going on now, isn't it? In terms of Republicans wanting tax cuts? Democrats want service?
Dick Saslaw
Yeah, well, yeah. You know, when JLARC, which is an independent commission, when JLARC comes out and says that we're spending $2,000 less per student than the average state, and well, under per student for North Carolina, West Virginia, and Maryland, we need to do something. And the current governor wants it for tax cuts. We want to not only fix that fix but also college tuition. Let me give you an example. Up until 1998-99, we had one of the best deals in America for students going into the state. State picked up 70%, and parents paid 30%. Now came the car tax, $950 million off the top okay of the budget every year. This was a relief to local governments, of which 43%, by the way, goes to Northern Virginia, where they're not really hurting all that much. But now the parents pay 70%, and the state pays 30%. Let me give you an example. From 1988 to 1998, William and Mary's tuition went up by $3,000 and went up by $9,000 from '98 '08. You can't run the state for free. It's that simple. I wish you could. But you can't.
Michael Pope
There is something really compelling to the Republican argument about tax cuts. Right. I mean, that does resonate with...
Dick Saslaw
We are not a heavy tax state. I mean, businesses, contrary to what you may be here and coming out of the third floor, they're lining up to come into the state here; who are we kidding. I mean, Amazon didn't go to North Carolina, Texas, or Florida, where there's no income tax. And by the way, if you remember when the governor first announced, he talked about doing away with that income tax, and he pointed out they don't have one in Texas, and they don't have one in New Hampshire. In Fairfax County. If you have a house that's assessed at a million, you pay $11,000 a year in real estate taxes. In Dallas, Texas, if you have a house assessed at a million, you pay $21,800. Almost 1$1,000. More. Okay, on $100,000 of taxable income. In Virginia, you pay $5,750, right? In Houston, by the way, that same million-dollar home $24,000 a year in real estate taxes in New Hampshire, basically your rural state $18,000 a year for that $7,000 more than you pay in Virginia. You can't run the place for free. They don't have an income tax in Florida. I was there one time, and my sister, my older sister, used to live there. She's now retired. Now she's up in New York, assisted living near one of her daughters. And I was there one time when she got her real estate bill on her condominium, which is worth about $250,000. I think it was as thick as a New York phonebook. I mean, with all these little things. So I mean, you know, it's like I said, they don't get you one way they get, you know.
Michael Pope
Another change that you've seen in your time at the General Assembly is the Press Corps, the journalists that are there covering the General Assembly; there are a lot fewer of them now, right?
Dick Saslaw
Yes.
Michael Pope
Explain how that changes things, or does it change things?
Dick Saslaw
Well, it has. Now, fortunately, and I'm glad the Washington Post still has a couple of people down there, which they've always had. And a very good thing happened to them, quite frankly, when Jeff Bezos bought the newspaper. And understand now, thanks to the building up in the digital part. They're now making money. They were losing about $15 million a year. I've been told I read, and I read somewhere. They're the only major newspaper in the country that still hiring people in the newsroom. Okay. But there's no question that the number of Richmond reporters has declined.
Michael Pope
And what is the influence of that? I mean, does that make things easier from your perspective?
Dick Saslaw
Well, not so much if you come from Northern Virginia because, you know, the Washington Post has always been a major, you know, daily news source, and it still is. Okay. But it's changed it, particularly for the rural areas. They don't have the coverage.
Michael Pope
From the perspective of the elected official, doesn't that make things kind of easier and a way that you don't have to answer a bunch of pesky questions?
Dick Saslaw
Well, it's not it, you know, if you do something crazy, trust me, it's going to get out. Okay, you're gonna have some, somebody, probably an opponent, some it's going to get out. But you don't have as many people ramming the microphone in front of you as you used to.
Michael Pope
And I also was interested in getting your perspective on the huge amount of turnover that we're going to see in the House and the Senate, particularly the Senate, which is a function of redistricting. And you got a lot of people who decided they didn't want to run for re-election because of redistricting.
Dick Saslaw
I announced it long before.
Michael Pope
Long before that. You'd made your decision long before redistricting. But there were many of your colleagues, as you will look at the maps.
Dick Saslaw
Janet Howell had planned not to run again; I know that for a fact. Okay. And we had one other member, you know, who had a health situation. And so you know, he didn't run, although, thank God, it's gotten a lot better. But by and large, Senator Hanger was put into a pretty untenable situation. Jill Vogel was kind of half and half; she did want to spend more time with her kids. And in fairness to her.
Michael Pope
And she can make a lot more money.
Dick Saslaw
Well, Jill, that's what it was; she can, but that's not a problem with her, trust me. But you know, Jill, to be fair, did want to spend, you know, she's got a 10-year-old, and the kids are all moving along and doing well. And she's a good State Senator. She had pretty much planned. Newman got put in the same district as Senator Peake. But he more or less was leaning because he's got a very important position with his company. He's one of the senior executives. And now it's unfortunate to lose people like this because you lose a lot of institutional experience, no question about it. Of the 16 members of the Finance Committee, I think 10 are gone. Both Susan Clarke Schaar, Clerk in the Senate, and April Keys, head of the Senate Finance staff, are going to have a lot of work to do with all the new people that are coming in. But that and the fact that so many of us, I mean, look at Ken Plum, he came in as a result of the '77 election, he lost two years later, but then came back. So he's been there 44 years, Janet, Howell 32 years, and Hanger, probably close to 38, 36 to 40 years. You know, Stephen Newman, 28. There are a couple that haven't been there. I mean, all that long, I mean, but anyways, it is what it is. And you know, everything came together at once with the redistricting. Frankly, we probably made a mistake; we should have kept the redistricting to ourselves. And I'll take part of the blame for that. I mean, we were not a heavily gerrymandered state. And I can back that up. I've given you two examples. We took over the Senate in 2007. Districts drawn by the Republicans they took over in 2011 on districts drawn by us. I told people Tommy Norment and I couldn't gerrymander our way out of a paperback.
Michael Pope
You regret supporting the redistricting commission.
Dick Saslaw
I would not have voted for it; knowing what I know now, we could have done it in a manner that would have satisfied most people, including the people who said you need to have independence. Probably the other mistake that we made was he said, I think it was going to be bipartisan; we should have said nonpartisan might have made it easier.
Michael Pope
So, just to be clear about your regret on the redistricting commission, the part that I'm hearing you express concern about as you're pushing out the incumbents. So, the way it ended up unfolding, the maps were drawn irrespective of where the incumbents lived. And that was the that's the problem that I'm here.
Dick Saslaw
Yes, it's created a problem. No question.
Michael Pope
And that ended up pushing out a lot of the incumbents. So, I'm curious about other redistricting cycles. I would imagine there probably were a lot of retirements and the other redistricting cycles, but how does this one compare to...
Dick Saslaw
This is by far the biggest... the Senate's going to be 40% changed. That's unheard of.
Michael Pope
Unheard of. So what does that mean?
Dick Saslaw
Well, you're gonna have a lot of people in there who, without the institutional memory that a lot of us have. So you know, you'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Michael Pope
Well, give them some advice, Senator, like there are a lot of freshmen senators that might be listening to our podcast.
Dick Saslaw
Well, you might listen to people, staff, people and people like that, who may have experience in, you know, institutional experience, you know, listening to people who have a lot of seniority they earn. Know what works and what doesn't work. Sides need to get a lot to learn to get along. That's the biggest thing. I don't mind whether they're new or old or have been there a few. That's the biggest problem we face today is this country is torn apart ideologically.
Michael Pope
And I would imagine you have seen a fair amount of that in the Senate with people like Amanda Chase, for example.
Dick Saslaw
She was a little different. To put it mildly.
Michael Pope
Yeah, and what do you mean by that?
Dick Saslaw
Well, we didn't have people get up. It's hard to envision somebody would have gotten up in the old days and called those people who crashed the Capitol Patriots. It would have been hard to believe somebody would have walked in there with a gun on their hip. You know, it's just things have changed. She was a little different. I mean, I got along with her well, personally, I did, you know. But she was a little different.
Michael Pope
It seems to me like the Republicans had a bigger problem with her than the Democrats did.
Dick Saslaw
They did. You know when we censored her. And she came up, or she had called these, during the debate these people, patriots, or she had previously. I got up, and I told her, I said, some of your "patriots." I said we were in T-shirts that said 6 million wasn't enough.
Michael Pope
Would you say back to you?
Dick Saslaw
She didn't.
Michael Pope
I could go on all day asking you questions, Senator, but we probably have to wrap this up. So I'm curious about what you would say to this huge group of freshmen who are going to arrive there and the Senate, some of them from the House, some of them from never having elected positions anywhere.
Dick Saslaw
I would say to them, don't come in there with the idea that you're going to turn the place upside down. Try to reach agreements with people who have different points of view, and try to stick to where the center is. Pollsters tell us that if 1 is Liberal, and 10 is Conservative, or 10 is Liberal, and one is Conservative. 80% of the voters fall between 4 and 6. And you might want to try to remember that.
Michael Pope
Okay, Majority Leader Dick Saslaw. Thanks for joining us.
Dick Saslaw
Thank you so much for having me, Mike.
