Became the oldest serving member. In an interview with cspan, Congress Representative hall reflects on his years and the Space Program. This is about 35 minutes. Congressman ralph hall, you have been in the house of representatives since january of 1981. You had hoped to be here for one last term. The voters thought otherwise. How are you processing your departure . Havell, of everything i checked on during that race, i was 12 points ahead. And it taught me that you never depend on people who tell you you are ahead when you are not. Coming back that night at 3 00 in the morning, i had to think as i was driving out to my house, that happened. I pulled out some old elections and checked how i had done, and i finally figured it out. The other guy got more votes than i did i got beat that is all there is to it. It hurt me because it hurt so many of my close friends. How does it feel now when youre getting down to the wire when there is only a matter of weeks until you are leaving the institution. How do you feel about that . I have been a member of congress for 34 years. If i was aget beat, manager for a baseball or a football team, and i had 34 and one, i would be in the hall of fame. It really did not bother me to at beat, because there was cochairman of my 18th, in my district, who have been supporting me and encouraging me to run. And i did. If youard to get elected are 91 years old. I also told people that you run two miles every morning, that percent of the time, but there is a different look towards old people. All 90 urals are not built the same, in other words . Yes. What is your secret . I was told one time when i was in the cattle business, if one of these heifers has a you liftll calf, if him every day over the fence day after day after day after day until he is a grown bull, when you can still throw the grown bull over the fence, then you can run for congress. So thats why a left the cattle business and came here. Over the course of your time here you have switched parties and you have seen the parties changed so many times. What is your handicap but start with the democrats today. What he think when you look at the Democratic Party today . Partywas really a two Democratic Party. It was conservatives and liberals. Was not liked any better by republicans that i was by democrats as i always voted for my district. A colleague told me to go up there and do a good job. So i stayed in touch. I am not a golfer. I dont hunt, i dont fish. I campaign when i have a day. I go walk. So i have campaigned all of my life. I think that is how i have state elected. Im interested in the party. Staying with the democrats, is it still split between the liberals and the conservatives . About three or four real conservatives over there now. They will slowly become republicans probably. Ive told a few that they really ought to be republicans. One of them was really our kind of democrat. He left a balanced budget. He was a conservative. And when you look at the Republican Party today, your challenger in the primary was a Tea Party Member. I dont know if he is a Tea Party Member or not. I dont know how you become a Tea Party Member. We dont know who they are or where they are. I tell them just to look at my record. Seen the party also split the same way that you describe the democrats, between fiscal conservatives and well we have different kinds of conservatives as republicans. You have to be a conservative if you are right. We are beginning to learn, i think. Other members that we have talked to, i have talked about how the congress has changed during your tenure to an institution where people used to do things together offhours. That played out in more compromise. Do you find that the place has changed in that regard, and if so, why . Here,tty much, when i got i was a democrat but i was a conservative democrat. But i really did not fit. Republicans did want me and democrats didnt like me. For example, the bushes were dear friends of mine. Because he wasas of a famous family, but he did not know me until after the war was over. But i knew some of those people and i admired them. So i had good luck when the bushes were in president s were in the white house, and i had good luck with reagan. I went with reagan to camp david in the first six months. I thought, i could spend the rest of my life up. That was 34 years ago, and i have not been back. I dont know if i have not participated properly out there, but there are questions you want ask a present. He was a good guy and easy to talk to. Ronald reagan went here when a man could make a difference. Here and was accepted as a conservative democrat or as a republican, because he had been a democrat like all of the rest of us. So he was in between. Somehow we just felt like you could trust him. For the first 30 days when he was here. When he hit here, he hit with a plan to increase the pay for the military, and he did not cut the budget. That was his goal. He had enough folks to do it. But when he got here, about 19 or 20 of his fellow republicans came to him and said if you dont change the way you are voting on guns and on abortion, we are not going to support your bill. Of course, nobody told him to go jump. But that he had helped out of the Democratic Party. I was a democrat then, stenholm was a democrat, so we had some strength over there. Jim baker could not tell the could tell the president to call one of those guys. So he could pick up those votes that he lost. He needed about 10 votes. He told me he was going to call me. So i was ready for him when he called. When he called and he said, this is Ronald Reagan. I said, yeah, i believe that wife, come over here this guy thinks he is Ronald Reagan said, knowing really is me. Those were the kinds of things that happened you remember always. Sure who would not forget a call from the president like that . He came over and knocked on the door and wanted to talk to my program. When i put the president on hold, i kept him on hold for about two minutes. Hered, you can come over or i can go over there, and he told me to get my you know what over there. He asked me what it was going to take to get his vote to help them cut the budget and to increase in pay for the military, and of course i had an answer for him. When you look across the president s that you have served under and served with, which of them have been the best with working with congress . I would have to say reagan. He was so believable. He has been a democrat, you know, pretty much. But the two bushes were easier for me to work with because i knew them. Him in world war ii and i had flown, so the old bush, he had flown for pedal bombers and i had flown for the famouso he was the most first father, and i knew who he was be he did not know who i was. Bushes have always been favorites of mine. I knew Little George when he was nine, 10, or 11 years old. 25 or 26, when he was and i never thought he would be present, but that is what a good woman can do for you. She changed him. She made him make the right choices. The woman probably save that guy. So Ronald Reagan was the best at working congress . I think so. I think he had less better than said teare went and down that wall. He brought cheers rather than tears. He know what to say he knew what to say and when to say it. There is a photo on your wall of a president that you did not serve in congress with, a texan, lyndon johnson. What is your relationship with him . Was 12 or 15 years old, he landed a helicopter in a football field and i got to know him them. I went to work for him then. I think they were paying me three dollars a day to put up his placards. But what i had to do to get one of his placards put up is to bring him three placards to a guy that he was running against, so they were really hiring me to tear the other guys placards down. 3035le was sheriff for years, and he got me into politics. He was a good sheriff and well thought of, and always a good man. You left politics for a while and worked in private industry. You decided to come back and make your bid for a nationally elected office. What are you back in . What drew you back in . I was living in the smallest county in texas, and dallas spills over upon us. It increased the value of our land. I bought a lot of land and then sold at the right time and was buying and selling land, but during the 80s, when everything hit the bottom, i was running for office and i was trying to come up or. If i had been doing like i had done before and buying all the land, i would have been broke. But i wasnt. All through the 80s, i was trying to keep my head above water because i knew i could come to congress. Why did you want to come to congress . And my mother were school colleagues. Iny went to a Little College commerce, texas. A little teachers college. It was a male college then and my mother and nine other males got sam rayburn to run for state senate. They elected him and they have been good friends ever since. She wrote a letter to sam rayburn when world war ii broke get me intoed to Officers Training school. He came directly to her and said for four put him in reasons, and all for reasons are his grays. But i was graduating in 1938 and i was 38 the my class. I have always been able to make it some way. So was it sam rayburn that made you want to come to congress . Yes because my mother spoke so highly of him. Came to be one time when i was county judge. My mother asked me one question and said if you meet him where you going to get breakfast . She i think sam rayburn could still be speaker of this house or could be i think, oh, joe dimaggio could still hit the fastball, the pitchers of today. I think those old guys could still operate the way they did, because, you know, when like i said, when ray burn looks back over his shoulder, he left a nation here that had a plan for it and had a balanced budget and had had one for 10 years when he was there. Your office is in the ray burn building. Did you do that intentionally . No. I always wanted to get here. The first year i was here, we drew for offices. There were 9 of us and i drew up in 9. Last again . , the last again i drew number 630 when there was 62 votes. So i stayed where i was. Finally, i stayed here solong had my choice and i picked this place. This is the best office on the hill. Why is that . Youre closer to the elevator, the views, and you think about that when youre an old guy, rest r5078s. Got everything an old guy wants. Youre surrounded by lots of photographs. So proud of all these people. Theyre all friends of mine. I dont know what im going to do with all these pictures. I have Neil Armstrong who came to my home and supported me when it looked like i might get beat. He came and worked for me. He was a good guy. Buzz aldrins been to my home several times, and in rockwall, you know, they werent sure who buzz aldrin was, but they knew he was somebody. And of course i took him to the schools. You know, seniors vote. This guy, Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin came on one of my election action elections. He called me from new york. I have tickets, you come pick me up. He said the Dallas Morning News is knocking around. First thing i learned is you dont fight people. He came here and it helped me. They helped me through the campaign. Ive had good luck and all kinds of help. To be in politics and stay, you have to have some ability but you have to have a little luck every now and then. Ive always had that and had people who helped me. The regulation when people were going to run against me, the regulation were republicans and theyd tell the people in my district that they werent going to get any republican money, the money would go with me. Wasnt too good be some of the real hard wing left democrats up there but theyre still my friends. What are you going to do with your pictures and papers . Are they going to a university somewhere . Im told theyre going to take all the pictures to texas a m, reproduce them and give these back to me. I hope they do. Your papers are going to texas a m . Yes. Everything i have are going to texas a m at commerce. My grandson went to school there. My wife, when i was in the office here started school there and went all the way through and got her degree from there. So were east Texas State Teachers College people. Didnt know there was another school anywhere. Many of these pictures and memorabilia are from the Space Program. Will you talk about what you think your legacy of the Space Program has been . Well, when i came up here, when i was first elected to congress, kim wright was the speaker. Hed been in my home and he and i were good friends. Id referee a fistfight that he had with a guy thats one of his best friends even today. I knew people who later were somebody. He called me in and said what do you want to be on. I said i want to be on something with energy texas is an energy state. I want to be something with that space station. Ive gone to some of the liftoffs with some of the older members. I think i belong on some kind of Space Program. He put me on both of them. It would take you 10 years to get on either one of them now days. I got lucky. I have friends in high spaces. What are you proudest of . Well, im proudest that we i was that one street we name and kept them from killing the space station. They came down to one vote on that. And i got dr. Debakey to walk the floors with me. We had that same vote and we won by a hundred votes. Later they tried to take space out of science and technology. I was a oneman army that taught them to leave space where it was because thats where it belonged . Why . Going to the moon . Is that transportation . I think thats a little licked. But it is space, you know, and its been space forever. Why change Something Like that . What benefit would it be . What do you think of this states commitment to the Space Program today . Well, were hurting. Were in trouble. And its a lack of money. I have a book over here was written by what is his name . Hes been before all the committees saying how bad we need the Space Program. Ive asked them to give money and it took too much money for them. They wouldnt do it. So were at russias good will by we started out giving them 50 million for a seat to go to our own space station. We need to keep going back and forth to that station. We made a mistake when we didnt put up the amount of money that it would have taken, because the Space Program is just not even 1 of the overall budget. And space is so important. Every youngster in the world would be affected if we lost the space station. Wed lose all our International Partners if we didnt do our part in keeping the space station open and available to them. Its just important. We may have to defend the next war out of space. Who knows . I told dr. Debakey himself, if you ever leave that space station, well lose the cure for cancer. And whats more important than a cure for cancer . Its important. I want to go back to your military service. Fewer and fewer members of congress have served in the military. Does it make a difference, considering that members have to make that important vote about yes, it does and it made a lot of difference that i was a veteran when i came here. Sonny montgomery was the only general i knew that i could call sonny, but that was his real name. If he lost four votes in the entire congress hed go grab them by the tie. What do you mean voting against space, what do you mean voting against my bill . He was strong and it was a strong push that day and time and still should be. What about members of congress with military service when you have to vote on things like sending people to war . How important is that . Does it matter . It matters if youve been side by side with someone or youve gone to your buddys funeral or you have a grave named after you. As a joke i always kid and say when i die, do i want them to say he was a good man or he really was a good to his family or he was a good member of congress. No thats not what i want to hear them say. I want to theyre them say i thought i saw him move. So im 91 years old. I dont hurt anywhere. Im not on anybodys wait list or anything like that. I still run a couple miles a day. I vote 99 of the time. I do most everything everybody else can do. I run two miles every day. I dont run it every day but theres never three days goes that i dont run it. I ran this morning. One thing thats changed is Media Coverage of congress. You mentioned ink by the barrelful. The people working in ink are hurting nowadays. Its all the internet and social media. How do you think thats affected things . The social media and the press . Theres been some good and some bad. Ive popped off and said things to people but ive said things i wished to hell i hadnt said, you know. I think were more aware when we talk to you folks of what were saying that, it could be in the paper in san diego tomorrow or in tv. I think you stop and think a little bit more so than we used to, you know. A lot of these politicians, they shoot at everything thats that flies and claim at anything that falls. Theyll be fruit their knees sooner or later you got to have some common sense and have some view of the future and remember what happened in the past before you pop offer here and stake take a stand on anything. Do you have any allies in the senate . We have two good senators . Ive always liked the senators over there. Got along with them fine. Never wanted to run for the senate. I was in the texas senate 10 years. You wouldnt you want to go over there . Anybody would like to be in the senate, i always thought if somebody dies over there, theyd appoint me to finish the senate term and if that never happens, i think hes still got it. He wont run against anybody. So id be standing there. Id be lot of times ive been lucky just because i was standing there. So the senate itself, though, and the house of representatives, what can you do here that you cant get done in the senate . Pass a bill and you have to really have the votes over there. And you have to raise so much money. The cost of running for office is a major issue up here. Its why i could never run for senate. I couldnt raise that much money. Youve had to raise increasing amounts of money to run for the house.