Legislative agenda. The most Diverse Congress industry poised to take power and a wave of new lawmakers is arriving on capitol hill. Republicans called it the ranks. And that spirit, the hill should look at the quirks of the voting members and the new congress. There is a Record Number of female lawmakers, alongside 430 men following the departure of michael grimm. You taught senator tim scott is part of the largest black republican lass in Congress Since the reconstruction era. There will be 46 black lawmakers and the new congress. Hispanic lawmakers will have 33 in the house and 30 senators. That is Peter Sullivan reporting on that. The 114 Congress Gavels in tomorrow at 9 00. Next, we hear from former white house officials and the obama bush, and Clinton Administrations. This would not happen without pat griffin. He has been a background of being an assistant director and assistant to be president under clinton. He organized this and he came up with the idea several months ago and i said, yes, go with it. He has been the academic director of the Public Affairs here, a lobbyist for many years since 1998 and he is the assistant director for policy and programs of the center. That is part of his role here but he also has had experience on the hill. He was one of the only elected the only elected staff person and assistant to the leader and special policy adviser to tom daschle. He has had private sector experience also. The point is, he knows the private sector, the white house, the hill and will lend his wisdom to this and leave the lead the discussion of our panelists and will introduce them at this point. Thank you. It is an honor to be here as part of the senate for Congressional Studies in american university. I so appreciate the mission and the desire to implement in terms of reaching out to the washington community. Also a particular honor to join the distinguished panel of friends and colleagues. The purpose of this panel is to discuss the Strategic Options available to the president and congressional leaders as they begin the 114th congress in the past two years of the Obama Administration. This is a relatively unique panel and that, among other things, we have held the director for the president of the united states. It is the nature of the job to share a common set of experiences, both in terms of what it requires working within the white house and also what it requires working with capitol hill. At the same time, there is many aspects of the jobs that are as unique as one can imagine due to the variety of circumstances associated with having different bosses, facing different world realities, and sometimes just the actual time you serve for the tenure of your boss. For example these two and to some extent myself we served in the first two years of the president s tenure. Chuck and dan worked in the past two years of the second term of their respective tenure. The energies of the newly elected resident is obviously distinctly different from the one in lame duck. However, the demands of the country and the world are often blind to that reality requiring the president and congressional leaders to have a Strategic Plan for engagement and government nonetheless. We will be asking our panelists specific questions regarding the strategic advice they might offer to the president and congressional leaders and light of the current political realities in domestic and International Policy concerns. Some of us on the panel have also advise congressional leaders in addition to serving as directors in the white house. Party notwithstanding, sometimes the advice you give is the function of the parties serve. Let me introduce my colleagues. Phil, second. These guys made me make you first. [laughter] phil is currently operating as a consultant on nonprofit world getting strategic advice and giving strategic advice and helping to develop taxable action plans. None hand in d. C. He served before serving director of legislative affairs a Senior Adviser to president obama and the first two years of his term working on any number of issues from fiscal crisis to health care, and those particular he wears that is a proud accomplishment. He has been chief of staff to henry waxman, Committee Staff director covering over 25 years in the house and as also, we share the opportunity to work as an adviser to senator daschle in mid2000. My next colleague is no calio nick calio. Currently the president of the trade association known as airlines for america, the largest trade association of airlines, American Airlines in the country. Formally known as ata. Now under whole new vision and direction under his leadership. He also has and the executive Vice President for Global Affairs and citibank. He has served as director of legislative affairs for george h. W. Bush as well as george w. Bush. The latter in the first two years of his tenure and also when he was laying down on the job. Dan myers, the gentleman on the end, currently the president of one of the most prominent successful lobbying firms in washington. Dan, head of legislative affairs has spent many years on capitol hill working in the senate for senator boschwitz and members of the congress and i had a chance to meet him mostly under good circumstances. Check brain chuck brain to my immediate right, current president of capitol Hill Strategy worked for a number of members in the house. A long tenure on the ways and means committee, which by the good fortune of his chairman and reality was in the middle of a lot of issues on the front burner of congress. Chuck was the director in the last two years of the Clinton Administration. You see what we have here is a panel of folks not only with a similar set of experiences but also different times and each administration and i think that is helpful in shaping the perspective of what does a strategic advice change much in the last two years of a lameduck residency versus the first two years and what does not change . The format for today is pretty simple. What i would like to do is ask each of our panelists one question to get started. Maybe two. I would ask each of them to respond and turn it to the group to ask any question they would like of any panelists. Let me begin. To the panel. There has been much speculation about what president and congressional leaders, republican and democrat strategy will be over the next two years. Each institutional player is trying to figure out what strategy is in their own best interest. My experience is each of the entities is first and foremost about survival. As they figure out survival, how do they determine what that felt interest is . Does this suggest two years of confrontation . Are republicans seriously thinking they need to demonstrate they can govern . Does harry reid give a damn in if the republicans look productive . I would ask not just what advice you might give on strategy, but lets take it back one step. What does the president or the speaker or leader in the senate have to consider . What elements do they take into account in deciding what the strategy is . It is a very opaque process. We sometimes get additional up to us and we will be confrontational. What were the considerations that preceded that . What are the risks of that team of u. S. Advisers are talking to the president or the leader or speaker about in deciding this is the strategy we must pursue . Chuck . You pose the question, how do they define their self interest . What is a very good question. I really think, and i am not differing the answer, i do not think any of them today can define their self interest for next year. What i mean, when they come back in a january, they will look at it in a slightly different light than they do here in december. You cannot underestimate what next year will look like getting past this session and whatever fights occur over the final wrapup. It will look different in december. What will they be looking at that would suggest conditions will be different . They will be looking at the last two years of president obamas term. They will be looking at the next elections, which will be impending, and looking at and assessing all of their own self interests. Individually. People will be posting questions about president obamas legacy. Having been there at the end of the clinton a administration what we were looking at and you remember this quite well, at this point, we were being impeached by the house of representatives. Compare that to an executive action on immigration and saying the current opponents of what he has done on immigration to say this has destroyed our ability to Work Together on anything well, to find the president has worthy of being removed from office or crimes and misdemeanors, yet we found a way over the next two years and they found a way to work with us. They will get over it. I think it is an overstatement to say the president will be focusing on his legacy. What they and the white house will be focusing on will be trying to do the things they started out to accomplish. In other words, they will know they have got 700 days and then 699 and then 98 to do what they think is right to accomplish them anyway they can accomplish them. One isnt working with congress . Taking an executive action . What regulatory things they have to do and then moving that direction. In that regard, the strategy will be driven by them and being effective and moving policy that has been somewhat underlying ly important to the president. Absolutely. And who they can work with on the hill. It is defined by who on the hill is willing and able to work with them. Thank you. It nick. In terms of the elements that go into to find the strategy are reaching a conclusion, one would hope you would start with what you what to do and what you want to accomplish. You have to have that kind of vision and center and build out from there. Then you have the elements that factor into that which is, can you get it done. If you are going to get it done what is your best way to get it , done. Looking at what the speaker in Mitch Mcconnell what to do, not all of them are probably there in terms of trying to get things done. If you are the president , you have to look at the opposition in congress and your own party where there is plenty of opposition with some of the things he wants to do and also on a personality driven basis there are concerns and lingering aftereffects of a couple of elections. I thought there was a confluence of interest here in terms of the president. I think he does want to look at his legacy, being effective in getting things done. The republicans have to get things done to show they can govern. People always talk about elections mattering. They do. What the election told you this time is the whole are fed up with the congress not getting anything done and the congress and the white house not ever working together. We are all older here. We have come from slightly different times than some of the current people. Congress, as an institution, has changed considerably. There was a time when democrats and republicans came together. Take the constitutional tension , which is ever present regardless of party, and that is something you have to get over , but requires a certain amount of outrage and knowing you cannot get everything you want and working what could be common goals and that takes a lot of conversation. You have to factor in all of the elements. Then you have to make a decision i think, what you want to look like in the sense of even if it is hard, can you press the restart button . If i was giving advice to republicans, it would be not ignore necessarily the elements of the party that like to bargain on the basis of getting what they want and then not voting on the bill. I was told that is the first thing you dont do in a negotiation. If i give you this, are you with me . That is pretty 101 and i think they have to start doing that. There is some notion on the republican side that some of the more older members have been chastened and ready to move forward. The last couple of days, maybe not so much so we will see. If i were giving advice to the president it would be, press the restart button. It takes more than a phone call to make friends with people. You have to start somewhere, start it now. You might find there are people you can work with but it will , take time and they have to get up close and personal to you to make the change with they are willing to make the leap and work on things and has to be trust and credibility there. I think it is awfully basic. This is all politics as a people game. You have to understand what you want and what other people want and try to come to some understanding of what it takes to get them where you can meet them so that both sides can be either mutually dissatisfied or mutually satisfied and then have something you can look at and say, we got this done and it is a good thing. I want to reiterate a couple of things that chuck just said in a slightly different way. I break down your question of the first part into three categories. First is substance. What is your substantive goal . Second, political self interest broadly for your party. The third is political and selfinterest very narrowed. There are people in the center right now on the republican side that may be looking at their interest as the Republican Party broadly because they want to carve out space for themselves. In my time in government, i would always be willing to trade good substance when you work in the Obama Administration they , always keep your mike off. That is a really good start. Let me recap. The three categories i have is substantive importance. , political interest broadly for a party, and political self interest for any political person in the process. There are a lot of individual people. In my time in government, i would always be willing to trade good substance for bad politics. As an example in 1996, democrats were the minority. Republicans running for house became concerned in the summer they would not have a lot of accomplishments to show for this going into reelection and all of a sudden a space opened up to get agreements on a couple of issues. The two issues i were working on was pesticides and safe drinking water. Pesticides had been blocked for 15 years. Going to the question about how you make the decisions ahead of time, all of a sudden you could feel that space opened up that we might be able to get through to have a pesticides agreement even though it had been blocked for 15 years. The political circumstances had changed. Within three weeks we not only , reached an agreement and energy in the subcommittee and then committee, what got the bill passed on the house floor a week later. The week after that, the Senate Passed it unanimously. The week after that, we were in the white house where president clinton signing the bill. That was bad politics on the democratic side because we were giving the republicans an accomplishment. The same thing with safe drinking water. Sometimes you want to make the trade if it is important to you. Political self interest is always harder to evaluate from a party perspective. In washington, and this is a good example of this, can you you follow the so much closer. I have the advantage of a split personality. I spent some of my time in washington and some of my time in new mexico. I am amazed at the thing that dominates here do not get on the radar screen in new mexico. When people are trying to evaluate their broad political interest of the party, it is easy to miss copulate. Political selfinterest is easy. Anyone who wants to run for president in 2016 has to carve out space and identity and fill a vacuum we saw that last year i fill a vacuum. Their interests may be different than their partys leadership. We saw that last year and two years ago when the Republican Leadership was trying to reach agreements and some of the senators like senator cruz did not see it as substantive interest or political self interest to be there. That is playing out today in the house and tomorrow or the next few days in the senate on the on the spending bill where everyone has to strike the calculation. It is more difficult than when i first came to congress. Telecommunications has changed everything it is much more. It is much more difficult now and it was when i was in the white house in 2009 because everything is accelerating. I think twitter was still not much of a factor. When we did the pesticides law in 1996, it would be infinitely harder to do today because parts of it would become fodder for cable tv, talk radio, internet and it complicates the entire process and that also affects the calculation. I think at the end of the day , most people would rather be consolatory and find Common Ground and reach an agreement despite everything you hear about washington, but sometimes the space is just not there to do it. That is the bottom line. The space there to get an agreement. If it is not because of the , eternal dynamics and the other partys caucus, you have the best confrontation policy. Is it fair to say the operating premise is there our are instincts on both sides to make stuff happen rather than not. An assessment of the conditions and circumstances that were permitted. Generally, yes. There are exceptions to people who elevate the personal selfinterest over everything else. If they are doing that, we need to realize that is what we are billing with full stop the second thing is that is what we are dealing with. The second thing is sometimes people do not correctly identify selfinterest. Sometimes people just make that decisions. You have to evaluate the person you are dealing with to see if they will be able to correctly see what the selfinterest is. Nick said something before that i think is right, a lot of blocking and tackling. The reason it is so hard is to do this part of the strategy right, you need to know your opponents interests better than your opponent knows it and be able to figure out better than your opponent how to get your self interest in a way that does not harm your self interest. Easiest thing in washington always is to get a bad deal. Anyone can reach a deal. The hardest thing is to get everything important to you. And one that actually works. That is what is hard and that is why people get upset about gridlock. A lot of the factors