And the ready to read program and some are read. Me will soon be announcing a winter read we will try to get the Community Reading just like we do in the summer we owe a debt of gratitude to our media sponsors and and our community sponsors. I hope you will join us later this month wrapping up the 2019 series we have kevin wilson in the meeting room downstairs. Also authors will be presenting the joy of cooking. Tickets are 50 but include a copy of the newest addition and a small sampling of the most loved recipes and cocktails. And now for the reason you are here today the moderator is a pulitzer prizewinning columnist the author of two nonfiction books and then to bring back here next year for that. Please do me too welcome to the stage miss connie schultz. [applause] elected to the seat with the Democratic Party beginning the political career 1975 and from secretary of state and has taught at ohio state university. With progressive senators who changed america. And with the eight men that were there before them. And in mansfield ohio he is married to a moderator they have three daughters and a son and a daughterinlaw seven grandchildren and those named franklin and Walter Sharon brown. [cheers and applause] sherrod brown. We are ready. I have never gone that reception. Hello husband. Interviewing my husband on stage is nothing i have done before but the more i thought about it coming close second in terms of how hard you have worked on it and more than a decade people are asking the same question over and over that you wrote this book yourself. [laughter] [applause] like i have nothing else to do so talk about how the book came about and what you learned over the course. First i want to Say Something nice about the library. Its great to do this in the library and in this library a number of you saw connie interview earlier this year. And then to watch the strong smart women and with those number of volunteers and those that make this happen. We dont necessarily have the best state government. [laughter] but it is the best state in the country, pop. [applause] so freshman everything in the senate is done by seniority. Your committees request, your office, where you set you are more or less placed by seniority so as a freshman there were ten desks left so i walked around and i realized there were no bad seats you dont sit behind a post. But some say they carved their names so i started to pull out the desk drawers and then the lawyers will like this hugo black south a quarter and gore of tennessee and then it just said kennedy. Which is this he said it has to be bobbys i have jacks. He did get first choice so that they started to think about the senators many of them i knew some of them i didnt at least one senator here or to that you would know little about one of them i have never heard of before. But then connie around the same time that you do your job Better WeatherPractice Medicine or practice law. And then you learn the history and then you do a better. So with the senators or the senate all inexpensive because nobody was reading them. [laughter] and then to say first of all i interviewed 100 people so the book was laid out to talk about these eight senators and the commentary and i wrote it for the same season one the same reason even we talk about it when the workers took the canary down into the mine if the canary died he was on his own he didnt have a union to make them safe. So this book is about the role of government and to build peoples lives. And mythology and blooms and workers and civil rights and womens rights and all of that. So when you thought it was ready quick. And the colleagues wanted to know about this. One person i came into office with so i wrote what i thought was a good first draft and i showed it to connie and she said not even close prickle first of all the writing it wasnt good enough at that point i had not done enough rewriting she said any historian could write a book but you have to being yourself into perspective i didnt start over but i did a much deeper dive. I didnt have a deadline because obviously i have a day job but to make it wide it should be and im very grateful for that because it wouldve been a shadow and the payoff in some sense was the first big review of the book it was posted friday night and then historian from toledo and Doug Brinkley grew up in perry. I so appreciate the story and did the review and not a political writer. We do like political writers. [laughter] i was not insulting her but i went deep enough into this for historical accuracy but i think i can write and they put a lot of seriousness into it. Add that critique that i did at the time is because you are a senator writing it so to bring yourself into it. And i love being right about all of this. [laughter] but when you tell more about yourself. And some of that story involves the mother. My monger up at a time in mansfield georgia at ten of 500 and went to washington during the war and lady became the cia years later my father was from mansfield ohio and then my dad had just come back from overseas and moved to mansfield. And to talk about segregation and she founded as a little gore girl in georgia in the thirties and then repulsive in much of the way i was boarded 52 because all the sixties and seventies where people were bussed for integration for much of the country and said yes i remember investing in georgia where they sent to the inferior black schools and head of the ywca that she would say where the best advocates for race and womens rights of any Ongoing Group in the country. Than the first africanamerican woman to run for president. So in 2000 for my mom is 84 my dad had passed away four years earlier she thought the John Kerry Campaign was not being well run well enough. So she took the card table and put it in her trunk and drove to a Grocery Store in another town and she did this every friday for six weeks and registered 900 voters. Shes an organizer and she kept all the names and voters and phone numbers and kept calling them to make sure they voted at the election. So the first time that i met her i dated a member of congress and i have known her 20 minutes and we are looking in the mirror and she said would you like a necklace because it may be drawing attention to my cleavag cleavage. [laughter] but your mom was the first in the family to support barack obama. I was not endorsing anybody and when my mom was dying 2009 both my parents died in hospice. Maybe you never understand that but and then to show up at my moms wake when she died because she had helped so many people. Saw my brothers and i and connie were staying there and on january 19 she said i really want you to go to the inauguration. So it turned out that was the last day she got out of bed and sat up and watched the inauguration it was her really good last lose a day on earth. She passed away two weeks later we are with her when she died. She just thought it was the greatest thing this southern white girl but that we had a black president. Its all good. And the response to the biographies they are flawed human beings and with them talking about it so why include that about them quick. If you are writing history you cannot paper over parts of their lives. And to and integrity. One thing connie has taught me and dad had real issues about race and began to change in his last years. And then say of you are like this so in those elected officials there are three people of those eight senators of their Early Careers and early lives. And then Robert Kennedy and albert gore senior he worked for mccarthy he was a difficult man and kennedy probably got the job to his father and he also wiretapped as attorney general and two things happened one more tragedy for the Kennedy Family and that changed him to be sure and was much more introspective. But the other thing as lincoln use to say his staff wanted him to stay in the white house but lincoln said no i have to go. My study that bobby really did go out and listen and get Public Opinion but it came out of a dinner i had with Peter Adelman who started off as a canidae staffer. And then running the Head Start Program and those that refuse to do it for head start so kennedy came to the delta and just saw awful poverty she did not like kennedys because John Kennedys judges went through the Eastland Committee he would not allow kennedy to appoint anybody that were mostly segregationist eisenhower appointed better judges and those that were done right or not kennedy so he had no use with kennedy but then bobby showed up and then married him several years later. [laughter] all the media and tv cameras and then picked up this baby child and said i did not want to hold him but she saw that the she had never seen in a hard and senator and then when he became that empathetic but those two things and then he became the Bobby Kennedy we all know. And that was before his assassination. But hugo black was the furthest. But gore went from and even career to doing the right thing probably lost the reelection because of the antiwar and because with pretty racist judges and then nixon went after and defeated him and hugo black with the kkk member and then the most important and then after that time ended up at his law firm. And in the chapter the value of public hearing. And through watergate but with the Washington Post coverage and in the current climate that we are in and with that encouragement in a different country with public hearings and whether they want that public or not. They all want everything to be public because they want a light shone on government on what we do. Thats part of the idea of representative government. And in 1966 the hearings that gore participated into the point johnson tried to stop cbs from covering the hearings live he actually convinced them to take the hearings off and do reruns of i love lucy that then there was a resignation over that and then the hearings continued and then canidae said those hearings change the American Public that and Walter Cronkite so they had a great impact. So having taylor or the colonel speak where people can see these hearings will educate one way or another. I think the house will likely impeach i know Richard Nixon didnt do some things and tromp of asking for an government to help with the election but i dont know what i would do with a trial in the senate because it is a jury and we should weigh the evidence and at that point not listen to Public Opinion. But the hearings are important and history shows to have a huge impact. But those were the same hearings and the titanic hearings and i was in the room writing the Affordable Care act so that hearings have a gravitas. And senators know how to do tha that. So since we are talking about impeachment people are asking what would it take for the republicans right now to stand up so the impeachment hearings will happen but that they are changing their mind for the support for the president so what would it take is there any possibility of that quicks and to think this president is not informed many people think he lies a lot and is a racist. They are not for fundamental reasons they like what he does and very young judges. They like his attacks on voter rights and womens rights and the environment and the other reason they dont there is a palpable fear that if they Say Something negative and followup at all they bring a primary on themselves and part of that reason is if you are a trump supporter in one of the 40 percent that is locked in then typically you watch fox you typically listen to conservative talk radio you never hear your republican officials criticize him. And i was critical of trade with obama think they were dead wrong that most of the time i wasnt afraid to say it. So where are you to do what you would have done. And then in the cabinet room and first of all that the two big issues of taxes and trade his depth of knowledge is 50 if he even on the issues he cares about. But to think the tariffs i supported tariffs in the past i advocated for them that they are a temporary tool for a longterm policy trump thinks they are the longterm policy and they never work that way. Second, he didnt work with our allies. So to name them indiscriminately and with those countries around the world so which are the serial cheaters syria and turkey and there are others but then you build allies and support to help reinforce those tariffs that achieved the most and that was lost on the president so clearly it has hurt the economy could have been done differentl differently. It centers around the word hope. So first of all is there a message of hope . Lets start there talk about the progressive history of the Senate Progressive movements are not longterm but is there a message of hope in the book . Yes. What connie said that i document directly and indirectly without talking much of the 20th century, wilson by any measure was a racist human being but there were progressive things for women getting the right to vote even though he didnt always support all of this. That was the time and the elections of the public sentiment then in the authorities in the sixties the greatest progressive era. But they are only shortlived the last two or three or four years with great accomplishment with longterm consequences and then there is a furious reaction from conservatives which is a fight between conservatives and progressives they just want to hold onto wealth and power and privilege and do whatever it takes. Look at tobacco and now ecigarettes when the smoking rate had dropped by almost two thirds me very well could be on the verge of another 2020 it takes elections to do that but the sentiment is there. Tromp is the worst president of my lifetime maybe an mightiest line in history i dont know much about james buchanan. [laughter] think back to slavery. We had slavery for the first 75 years of our existence. Think about world war i, the mccarthy days. I spoke to 100 clergy on immigration and probably didnt have this meeting. So thats why i am very hopeful people come together in a way i havent seen for a long time. What direction or strategy should they take for that advantage. I hope we get a chance to we have to. A lot of it starts at the local level in people running for office in toledo but also in oregon and it starts with that. And property a library so whoever said that the first time and it starts with hate speech but also the government doing way better than it has done. How did you decide quex and why is it so big . [laughter] a lot of senators sign their desks some never do truman signed ten different desks i have had the same distance i came to the senate some move every two or three years and dont sign it until they leave that my swearingin day it was the second oldest grandchild six birthday we brought six of the seven grandchildren to washington we thought it would be a good day to sign understanding the grand kids were more excited about the train ride over then about grandpa carty one carving his name and an old piece of furniture. It with family and friends and then we write one walk into the cloakroom as part of the senate floor and the Senate Archive was in there and you say it was sacred in the sense that only the senator gets to touch it and then she laid next to it so she takes the cutting tool and a sharpie. C suggested i write it where i did and start a new row because more people would want to sign it and said make it big and bold enough and take the time to do it barack obama and Hillary Clinton with a sharpie and they did it really quickly and didnt pay much attention because they were both ready to leave. He was becoming president i have more time on my hands. [laughter] so i filled it in and the grandchildren all ran their fingers over it. Is what we have been telling them their entire life dont carve the furniture. [laughter] exactly what theyre not allowed to do. Then jackie said this feels great. But you tell the story waited for the grandchildren to be around and then dedicated the book is my mother. But so talk about that. You get more serious about your job and what you see i am rarely fearful or discouraged i cant help of the direction we go for four more years. I dont want my kids and grandkids to have to deal with that so that makes us more serious of our task at hand. I turn 67 yesterday. [applause] i just feel lucky to be relevant at the age i met. In this book grounded me more because i realized it made me more serious the gravitas of the job. Not to sound more important that i am but. That is the evolution. How can you ensure Climate Change is recognized around the globe so the Younger Generation such as myself safe and habitable to occupy in the future. With the human rights its the most important there is no question about that and then to be closer to the fossil fuel industry than those democrats in a recognized Climate Change if its not connected to lake erie they recognized two of the human beings contributed may be not as much as western democrats but then it was the Koch Brothers taking over their party essentially and all the dark money every republican knows if they step too far on climate issues they are endangering their future and the Republican Party primary because the dark money is not like me calling you for a thousand dollars and i have done that too many of you in this crowd. [laughter] but its somebody coming here ive had more money spent against me it has been broken since a lot of it was outside money we dont know where it came from we have to disclose a lot of it but we figured it was the oil companies. E negotiations and the Federal Reserve plays a major role in that so i have my place in the committee and my part of the senate in that way will be aggressive in 2021 if we want i will still be aggressive but less effective i assume to really shine a light on what we need to do across t