Sen. Jon Kyl took his leadership position in the U.S. Senate so seriously he was willing to put his career on the line this summer when he pushed for legislation on illegal immigration reform.
Kyl reached across the aisle to his Democrat colleagues in an attempt to pass federal legislation on the issue that led to a firestorm of controversy from constituents who saw the compromise as amnesty for illegal immigrants.
As a result of the public outrage, the bill co-authored by Kyl was ultimately defeated. Months have passed, tempers have cooled, but the issue remains.
Kyl was unanimously elected minority whip on Dec. 6, succeeding retiring Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. He released the following statement: “I am honored that my colleagues have placed their confidence in me to serve as the new assistant Republican leader. Trent Lott is a dear friend of mine, and although no one will be able to fill his shoes, I have learned a great deal from his leadership and hope to continue in that spirit. I look forward to working with the Republican leader and the entire conference to meet the significant challenges we will face in the coming year.”
Kyl has served three 2-year terms in the House starting in 1987, and was elected to the Senate in 1994 and re-elected in 2000 and 2006.
Arizona Capitol Times sat down with Kyl at his Phoenix office to discuss the whip position, the role of the state Republican Party, and America’s dissatisfaction with Washington politics.
What does it take to be elected minority whip of the U.S. Senate≠
This is strictly an election among your peers. There are 48 other Republican Senators who decide who they want to be the assistant leader. It’s, ‘Do you have the confidence of your colleagues≠’ The only way you get that is working closely with them every day for years. I’ve been doing this now for a dozen years in the Senate. People get to know you. They understand what your strengths are. They understand what your attitudes are, your personality and so on.
I think the primary thing is you need to be a team player. They need to see you, not only as a leader, but as someone who will be fair to represent all the different points of view within the conference. You don’t get elected if you’re someone who is only interested in what you’re interested in. You have to be willing to represent all the people in the conference.
Has partisan politics over the past couple of decades made more and more personal enemies in Congress≠
Yes. It has become more and more partisan, and as Trent Lott said, ‘It’s not fun anymore.’
Is this the worst it’s been since you’ve been in Washington≠
Yes.
What do you attribute that to≠
A variety of things that kind of come together. Part of it is built over time. Part of it has to do with the way Washington operates now. It used to be, in the old days, when people went back to Washington, they pretty much stayed there. My father was in Congress and they were only allowed to have one paid trip per year. He couldn’t afford to fly back home every weekend and it was too far to drive. So people stayed there. They got to know each other a lot better, Republicans and Democrats. The more you know somebody the less likely it is you’re going to want to take their head off, politically. Now we have the ability to fly back every weekend and I don’t know my colleagues as well as back in the old days — especially on the other side of the aisle. So there’s more of an opportunity for distrust.
But there’s also something else in play here. I don’t mean to be partisan about this, but I think even some Democrats would acknowledge that they don’t like George Bush. Some of them downright hate him. Their first object is to see that he doesn’t succeed at anything. They think he took office unfairly. That he wasn’t really elected, that the Supreme Court put him in. They don’t like the war and so anything he does, they’re going to attack him for and they’re going to blame him for the things he didn’t do. After a while that gets a little old and you end up with a very partisan situation.
What’s it like to serve under a president from your own party who is seemingly so unpopular≠
I think it was Tip O’Neill who said there had been five presidents who served under him or something like that, the bottom line is that you don’t serve under a president. He does his thing, you do your thing and obviously since he’s a Republican and since I agree with him on most things, I’m supportive, but his popularity doesn’t affect my approach to issues.
Ratings for president and Congress are at all-time lows. How difficult is it to serve in your capacity, knowing that the American people are so dissatisfied with what’s going on or rather what’s not going on, for example, on issues such as immigration≠
What you try to do is understand why people are so angry. They’re angry, they’re frustrated and they’re anxious. I try to understand why and then respond to that. Part of their anger was over wasteful Washington spending. President Bush didn’t veto spending bills in the early part of his presidency. Now he has said we do have to draw the line. The American people have spoken. The Democrat budget is $23 billion over his budget and so he’s going to veto bills that exceed the budget limits. Republicans will try to defend his position on that to get back in line. The American people blame both parties for spending too much. But at least Republicans are trying to apply the lesson that was learned from last election. People don’t want that. They want us to stop this wasteful spending.
Secondly, on the war, people would like to get the troops withdrawn from Iraq, but they don’t seem to want to lose. The surge is working now. The president has said as long as the surge continues to work we can continue to draw down troops. The Democrat position is, ‘No, we want to get them all home really quickly.’ I think that the American people are beginning to respond to the president’s and to General Patreaus’ point of view that this is not a win-lose proposition. We can both succeed in Iraq and get our troops withdrawn. Success might not be quite as much as we originally hoped for and the withdrawal might not be as quick as other people would like, but by calibrating this carefully, we can both continue to withdraw the troops and succeed in our effort.
It seems as though Senator John McCain’s campaign doesn’t have the fire that it did the first time around. Why do you think that is≠
Well, circumstances have changed. When John first ran for the presidency, it was sort of made-to-order for his personality. He was the ‘maverick’ who could appeal to most conservatives, but also appeal to a lot of independents and the combination was almost enough to allow him to come from behind and defeat a very popular Governor George Bush – but not quite.
Now circumstances are different. It’s eight years later and you’ve got the war that’s not popular and yet, John McCain has been a very strong advocate of a strong war against the terrorists, a strong national security posture and that’s probably hurt him.
His desire to try to find a resolution to the illegal immigration problem has undou
btedly hurt him. I would argue that he has been a leader in both areas. While the immigration issue could be described as a mistake, in the sense, that we didn’t get the bill right or we didn’t explain it right, he has at least tried to tackle a tough problem. The problem is still there. So, at least we tried. But those two things have hurt him.
But you have to say, his willingness to try to be a leader, has hurt him. He would rather that be the result than not lead. He’s kind of the Teddy Roosevelt kind of leader. Better to get in, Roosevelt called it “the dusty arena”, and fight the issues, than to stand on the sidelines. But life is all about making it worthwhile. Doing work worth doing is what Roosevelt said and that’s what John McCain’s view is. I think he feels if he loses because he tried hard, than so be it.
The Arizona employer sanctions law – have you read the bill≠ What is it going to take for federal legislation to get passed≠ Also, with states passing immigration laws on their own how will the state laws work if a federal law is passed≠
First of all, the reason I think it’s highly unlikely Congress will address this issue in a serious way for a couple of years is because of the experience in trying to deal with it earlier this year. It was a very traumatic experience for everyone.
It’s fashionable for everybody to say, ‘We need to secure the border and enforce the law,’ because on that, everybody agrees. Beyond that, if there are 100 senators, there are 100 different views as to what ought to be done. Everybody’s afraid that if you bring the issue up on the Senate floor some of those amendments are going to be very hard to vote on. You can get into trouble when you have to vote “yes” or “no” on these amendments. Nobody wants to allow that to happen – at least before the election a year from now. So it’s going to be at least a year before anyone is willing to tackle it.
In the meantime, what are the states to do≠ The problem still exists. So you have states like Arizona, Oklahoma and perhaps some others who are saying, ‘We can’t wait for the federal government to act. There are at least some things that we can do.’
OK, so Arizona passes its law. It’s not perfect, obviously. But, it’s an attempt. A lot of it, assuming that the law is upheld – we don’t know whether it will be or not – a lot of it will depend upon how it’s enforced. Part of that can be helped by federal action. So what I have tried to do is to get a $60 million appropriation for the purpose of cleaning up the federal database that the state relies on.
Were you ever on the president’s list for the Supreme Court≠
I have no idea.
Would that have been a better job than minority whip≠
(Laughs) I really like the job that I have. I told you how fortunate I’ve been to have Arizona constituents put their confidence in me. It would be interesting to stop and think, ‘Gee what would it have been like on the Supreme Court≠ But I don’t think it would have been nearly as exciting as what I’ve done.
During the immigration debate, there were some disagreements between the state party and the way some Arizona citizens felt. How are you and (state GOP Chairman) Randy Pullen getting along now≠
Understand what the role of the state party is. I was active in the state party starting in the late 1960s. So, I’ve had a lot of experience. I was the state party legal counsel for about five years in the early ’70s and have been part of the state party in one way or another pretty much my entire political life.
I always have the view that the role of the state party is to elect Republicans to office. Period. The role of elected officials is to take positions on issues and to represent the people of the whole state. The political parties are more to represent the people within the party in a political context. What that means is, they need to register voters. They need to raise money for the candidates. They need to get-out-the-vote on Election Day. Those are the main things a political party does.
A political party begins to get into deep water when it begins to take a position on behalf of all Republicans. Now, I stood for election and I forget the exact number, but of hundreds of thousands of people who supported me, over a million people, I was willing to put it on the line to represent the people of Arizona. But I don’t for a minute think that my views can be imposed on all Arizonans, let alone all Republicans, as the only valid Republican position.
So I think the party gets into trouble when it presumes to represent all Republicans. When the party itself got involved in the illegal immigration issue, it seemed to me that it exceeded its role because clearly Republicans were divided. It’s just not a proper role for the political party to get into.
What do you see yourself doing after you leave Washington≠
I see myself splitting a lot of wood up at my cabin, hiking the mountains up there, spending time with my grandkids, catching up on reading and maybe I’ll have something productive to do after my political life as well, who knows≠
Do you think it will be hard for you to slow down or will you be ready for some peace and quiet≠
I get great joy out of hard work and I get great joy chugging up Camelback Mountain as fast as I can, but I also know how to relax.
Who’s your favorite Democrat≠
In elected office or just in general or what≠
In general.
I’ve got so many Democrat friends here in Arizona, for example, that I’ll take the political position and say I’ve got a lot of Democrat friends and I wouldn’t want to necessarily pick one out.
There were great Democrats who served, for example, like Jeane Kirkpatrick who recently passed away. She was a Democrat when she joined Ronald Reagan. I think she eventually reregistered. Joe Lieberman, of course, in representing the same general point of view I do against the radical Islamists and supporting the president’s efforts on national security matters is certainly one of my favorites.
On other issues, I work a lot on crime victims’ rights and national security issues also, Senator Feinstein from California. We’ve worked together very well on things and Ben Nelson from Nebraska. He’s a good friend, too. I’ve got a lot of friends on the Democratic side, but what you try to do is find areas where you can agree and work very closely on and just understand there are other areas where you’re not going to agree and that’s fine.
When you’re done serving in Washington and look back on your life and your political career, what would you like your legacy to be≠
You know, I tend not to focus on political achievements as my legacy because the most important thing to me are my kids and my grandkids and my friends.
What I would hope is they would conclude that I did my best and I did it with integrity and that I was able to achieve some things that are important to their lives.
You know the older you get, when you get old like me, you realize what’s really important in life is your family, your friends, the memories that you have and the effort that you put in and if you can achieve some good things in the process, then all the better.
I’ve been very fortunate to be put in positions where I could at least fight to do things that made a difference.
Thank you very much senator.
Thank you!