Schuitmaker and Warren: Promoting Civic Discourse

0:00:01.6 Speaker 1: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It is so wonderful to see you all here as we all come together. Thank you for being here and welcome to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. For those of you for whom this is your first time being with us, we also want to extend a warm welcome to everyone watching via livestream at this event. So I am Celeste Watkins Hayes. I'm the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Today we are happy to welcome former Michigan State Senators Tanya Schuitmaker and Rebecca Warren, as well as former Democratic and Republican Party chairs respectively, Mark Brewer and our own public policy lecturer, Rusty Hills. The former Senators are leads at Michiganders for Civic Resilience, an organization dedicated to fostering a vibrant democracy through founded on trust, dialogue and accountability. Its mission is to bridge the divides of political polarization, restore civil discourse and uphold the integrity of US Elections. In these volatile times, that mission is especially important. Ford School faculty member Jenna Bednar will introduce the panel and lead the discussion. In addition to her faculty duties here, she is the inaugural faculty director of UMich votes and Democratic Engagement.

0:01:30.3 Speaker 1: She also leads the campus's voting infrastructure and is co chair with LSA Dean Rosie Ceballo and myself of the Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment and Global Engagement. That is a campus wide collaborative effort to elevate democracy related research, curriculum and engagement. DCGE, as we call it, is a co sponsor of this event. So we want to say thank you to Jenna and the Year of Democracy team, the DCGE team. After their discussion, we're going to open it up to audience Q&A. For questions in the room, please use the QR code on the orange cards around the room. If you're watching online, the question link can be accessed on the event page or in the event description on YouTube, LinkedIn or Facebook. At the end of the discussion, we invite you to enjoy to join us in the Becky Blank Great Hall for reception generously supplied. Thank you so much for Michiganders for Civic Resilience. And with that, let us give a warm Ford School welcome to this wonderful panel.

0:02:46.6 Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Dean Watkins Hayes, and it's my great pleasure to just give you a little bit more background on each of these four remarkable people as we're all looking forward to the conversation. So let me start at the end with my colleague, Rusty Hills. So Rusty is a lecturer in Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy where you sit right now. Sorry, this is a very formal bio at the University of Michigan. He has served in senior leadership roles in the Michigan Office of Governor and the Michigan Department of attorney general for 23 years, including senior Advisor to the Attorney General and Director of Public Affairs for the Office of Governor. Hills was elected unanimously to serve as Chair of the Michigan Republican Party in 2000 and again in 2001. So unanimous agreement is a pretty remarkable thing and we're so lucky to have him here at Ford. In 1990, Hill served on the transition team for governor elect John Engler and again in 2010 for Attorney General elect Bill Schuette. He has attended eight national conventions as a delegate or speechwriter. Prior to government, public service and politics, Hills worked as a reporter and anchorman for CBS and NBC Television affiliates in Lansing, Jackson and Flint, Michigan. So welcome.

0:04:21.6 Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

0:04:27.3 Speaker 2: So I'm trying to get these in order. Let me find where are you Rebecca. Next to Rusty is Rebecca Warren Rebecca Warren served in the Michigan Legislature as a state Representative and a state senator from 2007 to 2020, representing Ann Arbor and parts of Washington County. Known for her ability to reach across the aisle and negotiate, Rebecca consistently found a way to pass critical legislation without compromising her values. Examples of her accomplishments include advancing health care parity laws, shepherding the passage of legislation to require health insurance providers to cover the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders, establishing a licensure program for the practice of applied behavioral analysis, sponsoring legislation that created the legal framework for the development and testing of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies, and championing the legislation that enshrined a woman's right to breastfeed her child anywhere that she is legally allowed to be. During her time in the House, she shepherded ratification of the Great Lakes Basin Water Resources Compact, landmark water protection legislation that effectively banned the diversion of water from outside the Basin. She was subsequently appointed to represent Michigan on the Great Lakes Commission, a binational and interstate commission focused on water use and conservation.

0:06:04.8 S2: Before being elected, she led NARAL Pro-Choice Michigan, which at that time was the state's oldest and largest grassroots pro-choice organization for seven years. Rebecca is president of Adaptive Strategies LLC, a non profit and political consulting firm. So Rebecca, welcome. Tanya Schuitmaker Tanya Schuitmaker served in the Michigan Senate from 2010 to 2018 and was chosen by colleagues to serve as the Senate's President Pro Tempore, the second woman to hold the position. She served on the Senate Appropriations Committee and as a Chairperson of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education. She was also a member of the Senate's Judiciary and Energy and Technology committees. She is a practicing attorney at Schuitmaker, ooh, thank you, Moraitis Law in Paw Paw, Michigan. She is also co-director of the Michigan Political Leadership Program at Michigan State University. She served as president of the Van Buren County Bar association, the Van Buren County Republican Women, and as vice chair for Van Buren County Republicans. Schuitmaker was named a 2014 Aspen Institute Rodel Public Leadership Fellow. That is so awesome. She is currently a community board member for Sturgis bank and Trust Company. So welcome, Tanya. And finally, immediately to my left is Mark Brewer.

0:07:55.1 S2: So Mark Brewer, an attorney at Goodman Acker PC was elected chair of the Michigan Democratic Party MDP, a position he held until 2013. Doesn't say when you were elected. Okay. I mean, that's, you know, if it had been 2012, that would have been a different kind of bio. 1995 to 2013 is pretty amazing. Making the longest tenure in MDP history. Concurrently, he served as a member of the Democratic National Committee DNC from 1995 to 2013. There are the dates. Okay. Including a pivotal period from 2005 to 2009 when he presided as president of the association of State Democratic Chairs. His legal career began by clerking for a Judge of the Fifth Circuit, Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals, and later for Michigan Supreme Court Justice Charles Levin. Brewer has dedicated significant time to pro bono legal work for various state and national organizations, notably the ACLU of Michigan and the League of Women Voters of Michigan. So welcome, Mark. So each panelist is going to speak for a few minutes and I believe Tanya is going to kick us off and just want to remind you about the QR codes. My colleague Daniel Rivkin is keeping an eye on all of the questions that are coming in and will be reading and asking those questions on your behalf after these remarks.

0:09:39.8 Speaker 4: Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you, Dean and Daniel for inviting me here today. And thank you all for coming out. You give me hope because we are a society that some might say that we're divided, but I think that we share more in common with our common values and can come together and have civil discourse. And that's really the purpose of why Rebecca and I do what we do in terms of Michiganders for civic resilience. To give you a bit about my background is I grew up on a small farm in southwest Michigan. I've been pretty much a Republican. Hard work out picking asparagus growing up as a child. And my mom was a social worker and she always said, "Make the world a better place." And so I have always, that has kind of driven me. I was an attorney in private practice. I also had another pivotal moment being an attorney is that I always felt that when you go into court, you argue your case. And that's kind of how we are in our wonderful democratic society in terms of ideas. That's how the framers wanted our society to be, is to be a nation of free ideas.

0:10:54.1 Speaker 4: They didn't want us having violence in our society. And really, civility is the bedrock of our free and democratic society. And so it's very important that we not take that down to a level of violence, that we be able to express our ideas. We go into court or the court of public opinion and really argue those ideas and then come out as friends. And I'm sure my fellow bar member over here will say that you walk out, friends, at the end of the day, you may argue, you might have difference of opinions. Nobody's going to agree with each other. So, anyway, then fast forward. I served in the legislature. I worked with my good friend Rebecca, or Senator Warren here. And we actually had a, people were amazed because I'm a right conservative Republican, she's a left Democrat. And we actually had an amazing friendship. We worked together in the House and the Senate for a number of years together. We traveled together. And, you know, when I had a tragic moment last year when my father passed away, you know, it was Rebecca that came and same with you, Rusty.

0:12:01.9 S4: So thank you very much. Those are the moments that really mean when you're down in life and you have your true friends that come help you. About a year ago, I was kind of, in my living room talking, and I got a call from the Carter Center. Me being a right Republican, I was floored when the Carter Center approached me and asked if I wanted to start this organization, Michiganders for Civic Resilience, which really talks about civil discourse and then safe and secure elections and other common values that we share. And so that was right up my alley. And so I said yes. I said on one condition, that we partner with the Ford Foundation. We've got Jeff back there. Thank you so much. You were very gracious with everything because Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford, they had bitter election. But at the end of the day, you had two great humanitarians, and they had a true, genuine friendship. And that's the history of them. And so I think it's very important that we as citizens expose ourselves to different ideas. That you're not in an echo chamber, that you talk to people. One of the most disheartening things that saw on Facebook was a good friend of mine who's a Democrat, but she was really sick of the vitriol in the election, said I'm going to de-friend all my Republican friends.

0:13:28.0 S4: And that's sad, that's not how we should be because we're all one thing. And to take it back to when I first came into office in 2004, the complaint was that people were apathetic. You know, only 30% of people were voting, roughly, I might be wrong on that number, but that generally people were not partaking in our wonderful now you've got upwards of almost 60%, 70% of people voting and what a wonderful thing. We might have a little bit disagreement, but my dad always taught me the glass is always half full, not half empty. So I want it to be a positive conversation today. I want us to talk about civility because it's really disheartening when I see violence on either side, left or right. And so really that is our message today. We also partake or did a Northern Michigan tour about safe and secure elections because people need to have faith in their elections and our elections are safe and they're secure and there's checks and balances. So maybe that's a conversation for another day with our clerks. But today I think we're here to talk about civility. And thank you very much for inviting Rebecca and I and I'll turn it over to my wonderful friend Rebecca.

0:14:40.8 Speaker 5: Thank you. Well, thank you Tanya and absolutely echo the thank you for the invitation. It is always a pleasure to be here. I am a U of M alum myself and live just down the street so it's always easy to get to get back here. So it's good to be home and to be part of this conversation. And about a year after Tanya got that phone call asking her to be part of this organization, she reached out to me and said one of the things that the Carter Center has done in building this group of state based organizations which were part of a network that they call the Democracy Resilience Network. They're working in a handful of states. Every state is purposely cross partisan, led by a state right leaning lead and a left leaning lead. And the person that she'd been working with for the last year was moving on and she said, "We thought of you and want to invite you to come and work with us on this work." And as she said, we had served together in the legislature for 12 years. We are friends and of course I would take a look at anything that she would say, "This is a good opportunity, you should consider doing this work with me."

0:15:51.3 Speaker 5: But when I looked at the goals that this network is seeking to achieve, it felt like the thing that I personally needed so much in this moment to feel like I was helping contribute to a conversation about how do we help amplify those values that Senator schuitmaker talked about that we all share, our common Michigan values, our common American values. Get back to that place where we listen to each other, where we disagree without being disagreeable, not as a platitude, but as really interested in how people come to their thoughts and their values and the things that they're doing in the community. And so the idea that we would get to work on this day in, day out and have conversations like this to say that as a right of center Republican and a left of center Democrat, we can be friends.

0:16:49.1 S5: We are not going to agree on every issue, but we are going to respectfully hear each other's positions and we're going to be very loud about the places that we are in complete alignment which are building, trying to do our part to rebuild that faith in our election system, that our elections are safe and secure, to rebuild that idea that civility and power politics should be business as usual, that we respect the office, we respect those who put themselves out there and that threats of violence or violence against any person running for office of either party is something we're going to join forces and be vocal in opposition to, and just trying to do this kind of event where we bring folks together from both sides of the aisle in a cross partisan way to say, you know, we do have more in common than we disagree on.

0:17:43.0 S5: And let's get back to that. And so it's just been an absolute pleasure. I'm the newest kid on the block here. I've only been working with this organization since the end of January. So you're being exposed to my first public speaking engagement on this topic. But it has just been a true pleasure and we're really looking forward to your questions and to the comments of our state party. Former state party chair colleagues here and just appreciate so much that you made the time to be here with us and to be part of this conversation, as Senator Schuitmaker said, it was really heartwarming to see how many people RSVP'd, how many people who are watching the livestream that this topic is not just timely to us but to obviously to the Ford School of Public Policy, to all of you who are here in attendance and watching. So we thank you and appreciate you.

0:18:42.0 S2: I wonder if. Yep. Mark, would you like to speak next? All right.

0:18:47.2 Speaker 6: Well, I also want to thank the Ford School for the invitation. I think it's a great thing that you've gotten everybody together to talk about these things today. And apropos of our topic, I think Gerald Ford is the kind of model that we all need to emulate when it comes to civilian politics. You can disagree with his political views, and I did, and I do. But he really was a model of civility and politics that I hope we can get back to. I'm going to be brief because I think you'll get far more out of the dialogue than you will out of listening to me talk. But there were a few kind of observations and comments that I wanted to make. I've spent my life in advocacy. I've been an advocate since the late 70s when I graduated from college, either as party chair, as a lawyer in a wide variety of capacities. And I have personally tried never to demonize or dehumanize the opposition. I've had a lot of vigorous debates in the courtroom with my friend Rusty and his colleagues. But we always tried to, I always tried to. I didn't always succeed. I acknowledge to not personalize that, not demonize that, not attack another person as a person, to respect their views, even though you may disagree with them.

0:20:04.3 Speaker 6: I've tried to adhere to that. And I think, unfortunately, we've gotten away from that way too much. Our politics has descended into a very bad place because of the dehumanization, the demonization that now goes on. We've become tribes where it's not just that Rusty and I may disagree on politics. It's somehow we're enemies. That's not the way politics should work. It's not the way a civilized country should work. But we've gone down to this very bad place. I think there's lots of causes of this. Some of it can be overwhelming. I think the online world is a significant contributor to this dehumanization, this lack of civilization or politics. I think the pandemic exacerbated the isolation we all feel. Dan and I were talking about this before the event started. We need to have more events where people are there, face to face with each other, interacting as people. In my experience, it's much harder to demonize and to hate somebody if you know them face to face online, you're anonymous, writing, say whatever you want. And people do as you know. And you get away with it, right? Because you're in the void. You're in that great empty space there.

0:21:21.6 S6: And then there are demagogues in our society that Take advantage of this. They play to the hate, they play to the dehumanization. They play to people feeling like victims, and they just make the whole situation worse. These are enormous problems. I applaud people like the two senators here who are working on these problems. I don't think there's going to be any one solution to this. But for me, it starts with my behavior. My behavior. Trying to adhere to those norms that I just described. Being a vigorous advocate, but never attacking somebody as a person, never dehumanizing them, trying to understand where they are coming from. I think we're in a very, very bad place as a country. I'll just be candid with you. People say, is it the constitutional crisis? We're past the crisis. We're in a situation now, certainly in terms of the rule of law in this country, where the question is, will we go back to where we were? We are losing the rule of law in this country. People are going to be snatched off the streets, treated as, you know, hostile enemies of the state, and deported without due process. And that's just a symptom of our problems.

0:22:35.1 S6: We embarked a couple hundred years ago on a great experiment here. Can a multiracial democracy succeed? We've had close calls, the Civil War being most prominent. There have been others. But I think we're in the midst of another big challenge to whether we can succeed as a multiracial democracy and all get along. Nobody's going anywhere. People I don't like, people I disagree with, they're not leaving, and I'm not leaving either. So we've got to figure out a way to get along.

0:23:11.0 Speaker 3: Well, I guess it's my turn. And Benton cleanup here, and then we'll turn it over. First of all, I want to thank Dean and Jenna for inviting me and for bringing all these distinguished panelists here to talk about this. I think we all know what the problem is. I don't need to go over that. I would just offer two observations. Everybody here knows it's St. Joseph's feast day. And for those of you familiar with the New Testament, he never says anything. He listens. And that's sort of a good example for a lot of us. I think we all do a lot of talking. I think it might benefit sometimes if we did a little more listening, particularly to those people that we don't always agree with, and just try to be quiet for a minute and hear what is somebody saying? What's the point of view or what's behind this? Let me see if I can get to the root of what's being said here. Let's see if we can find a solution to the problem. But I'm not going to do that unless I hear what somebody has to say. So I think listening could be a skill that we could all sharpen up.

0:24:00.9 S3: I know I could improve mine, and maybe that's something we could all take away. Then the second thing, a little piggyback off what Mark said is you talked about how important it is for us to be here. And so I appreciate everybody here in person and everybody who's joining us online. It's relationships. And so I, as you mentioned, Jenna, in your introduction, I've had the pleasure of working in government for a governor for attorneys general. And I will tell you. And you know this because you both worked in the legislature. When I worked with John Engler, we were trying to get Proposal A passed. We were having a hard time at the end. Governor knew how to play hardball, as you well know. But he picked up the phone and we called Jackie Vaughn, who was a Democrat senator from Detroit, and we called Lana Pollock, who I think was your predecessor as a senator here in Ann Arbor. And we made deals with them to get votes so that this finally got to the floor and was voted passed and what have you. And I also worked with Bill Schuette, Attorney General, who also was very good with relationships on both sides of the aisle.

0:25:03.8 S3: And I remember once we were trying to raise funds for a monument on the State Capitol grounds to honor fallen police officers. We were a little bit short. We ended up calling the Bernsteins and very, very nice. I called up Mark Bernstein invited us down. We had a great conversation. I will say they were very generous and helped us get that put together so that got built on the Capitol. And the point is we could talk to Democrats. Not that we always agreed, we didn't, but we could talk to one another. And it's those relationships that have brought Senator Warren to my class on multiple occasions that that brought Chairman Brewer to. I just had a Democrat last night talking to the students. So it's all because we have relationships. And it doesn't mean we agree. We don't agree, but we might be able to find common ground. But only if we talk. If I can listen to you and to Tanya and to Mark and, you know, to others, and then they can listen to me and let's see where we can find agreement. Right? And so those are the observations that I would pass on.

0:26:05.2 S3: The last point is this. There's a line going around that we're In a permanent political campaign. I'm sure you've all heard that. And the problem with a permanent political campaign is that if you're always campaigning, then we're never governing. And it used to be that Mark and I would fight, we would fight, we'd try to win our races and you try to win your races. But then the election was over and we'd govern at that point. We governed and tried to get proposal A passed or your bill's passed. And these days, if we're always in a permanent political campaign, then there's no room for a governing campaign to compromise, because then you're seen as the enemy. Right now, I'm dealing with somebody on the other side. So there we go.

0:26:54.4 S2: All right, I'm going to take the moderator's prerogative and ask a question. I know we have a few lined up, but I want to pick up on some of these themes that the gentleman just raised and take it back to our senators. As a professor, one thing that I've worried about is that our current generation of students don't know anything different from what they're experiencing right now. And first, the fact that the four of you agreed to come here, the work that you are doing, like, you're really putting in the effort and the way you've just described this, of the importance of being human first, the importance of building relationships, right? Are you all just weirdos? And like, honestly, if we're so worried about the country, and yet here you are, so help our students understand how it is possible to see the four of you be here together and yet all of us be so worried about the current political climate and the inability of people to talk with one another. And I guess I would just start with the senators if they might share a little bit about is there any, are there any rays of hope? Or, you know, are you, like, within the Michigan legislature, are you seeing relationships like yours form or are you seeing more and more dehumanization, which, as Rusty pointed out, leads to paralysis and the government not doing its job right, so.

0:28:50.4 S4: Well, I can only speak to my experience and I don't have a whole lot of day to day interaction with the current legislature. But I can tell you that first of all, I think if you're going to be a savvy legislator, is it's incumbent to build relationships on both sides, because Michigan is a swing state, and so you might be in power one day, but the next day you're chopped liver. So you have to build those relationships to get anything done. If you're going to be an effective legislator. So I've always tried to work across the aisle. I won't always there's a lot Rebecca and I don't agree upon, but there's a lot we do agree upon. And so I think building, as Rusty said, building those relationships are critical. The other thing, observation, I will say, is I also run the Michigan Political Leadership Program, which is for usually postgraduate people that are looking to run for office, how you run for office, and then also a public policy primer. And I'm happy to say I've got two of my former students here. And it's amazing. We specifically do six Republican men, six Republican women, six Democrat women and six Democrat men.

0:30:05.6 S4: Sometimes we get some independents in there to but usually somebody leans one way or the other. But we purposely get a very diverse group of people, not only in ethnicity but also in thought process so that they do and they come in and they're like, think in their class. Like, I don't think I agree with anyone, I don't know. But by the end, it's after spending every month together for a weekend, they really, truly build friendships. And, you know, I saw Stacy go up to Suzette, give her a big hug. You know, I'm sure they don't have a whole lot in common, but, you know, here they are embracing each other. And so back to relationships. It is all about relationships in every field.

0:30:54.8 S2: Becca?

0:30:55.9 S5: Yeah, I agree. And you know, we all have little, you know, fun, I guess, stories and anecdotes. And so as Tanya said, we are a swing state. And in the 12 years that we served together, I came in, got elected in 2006, and Democrats regained control of the House for the first time in a number of years. And so for four years we served together and my party was in the majority. And when we went over to the Senate together, her party was in the majority. So we really experienced in a short period of time that difference of being committee chair versus committee vice chair. And a story that I like to tell is I, you heard in my bio, worked on water issues a lot, was the chair named the chair of the Great Lakes and Environment Committee. My vice chair, Republican vice chair of that committee was from West Michigan, a man named Arlen Meekhof. And we had a very congenial relationship. We worked together on that committee committee. We got a lot of really big things done in four years, not just the Great Lakes Compact, but lots of other legislation to protect our parks and our wetlands.

0:32:03.9 S5: And when we got to the Senate, Arlen became our Senate Majority Leader, and he came and talked to me about my committee assignments and where he was going to put me for the work that I was going to do in the Senate. And somebody asked him why he was being so nice to this lady liberal from Ann Arbor. And he said, "When Rebecca had the gavel and I was her vice chair, she treated me kindly every day. She let our amendments get heard. She let us make our points. Now, we were clear." Like, you know, I had the gavel, and there were times I had. I'm sorry, I've got to get this bill out of committee today. The speaker wants it. I'm going to have to roll, yell, but you say what you want to say, and then we're going to vote. And I can count. So I've got my votes lined up. But I didn't treat him that way because I had a crystal ball and could see somewhere down the line he might be my Senate Majority Leader and be able to make these decisions about my political future. But just taking that sort of that golden rule idea of treating people like you want to be treated, being respectful, and it just pays dividends.

0:33:05.5 S5: And so that, getting to be in the room with people. And I think to Mark's point, the isolationism of what happened during the pandemic, lots of folks still, it's an epidemic of loneliness, they say, a lot of public health professionals are saying. So the more that we can do to be together, to listen to each other, to build those relationships, it is harder to demonize each other when you know each other.

0:33:32.0 S2: I'm going to ask the same question of both Rusty and Mark and then turn it over to Daniel, but because. Okay, we can kind of imagine that in a legislature. All right, I see why you would need to build relationships. At some point, you may need the votes. Is there any reason for people leading distinct and competitive parties to form relationships and respect one another? Please say yes and then let us know why and whether you see. You know, are you just old school and is it irretrievably gone?

0:34:15.3 S3: You want me to go first? Well, two observations. First of all, great question. Thank you, Jenna. To that point, so Mark was Democratic Party chair during the time that I served as Republican Party chair. And I thought we fought each other toe to toe pretty well during that period of time. And, you know, I won some and lost some, and you won some and lost some. But I forgot to mention that Mark and I actually cooperated on something, and it was right after the terrible events of 9-11. And I don't know how many other students remember that. Maybe, you know, it was, you know, it's been so long ago, some of you don't remember that, but it was a troubled time. You talked about that. That was one of those troubled times America went through. But you, I give you credit, you called me up and said, "Hey, let's put out a joint press release to sort of lower the temperature, particularly with regards to, you know, Muslims and respecting those of the Islamic faith." And we did that and we were able to put that joint release out together again to try to lower the temperature, right?

0:35:15.7 S3: And to try and let's deal with this rationally, sanely, coolly. The other example that I want to give is. So I was campaign manager for Bill Schuette in 2010 when he ran for Attorney General and we were successful and won the election against David Layton, who's the Genesee county prosecutor still to this day. Later, we were the ones that brought the investigation into the Flint water crisis. We actually met in David Layton's conference room in Flint and David Layton was part of our team to try and get to the bottom of what happened and why and how that came to be. I don't think that's ever happened before where you had two people run against one another. And then we literally sat side by side and worked together. And it was because after the election, to both their credits, Bill Schuette and David Layton met at a Tim Hortons and we sat down and had some coffee and donuts. And ever since then we were able to work on issues. Now, David Layton is still a card carrying member of the Democratic Party, right? And has a lot of disagreements with me and with Bill and the Republicans, that's fine. But when we thought we could come together to solve a problem and the Flint water crisis was a problem, we were able to sit down together and roll up our sleeves and work on that. So it can be done.

0:36:42.9 S6: Yeah, I want to take this in a little different direction. Look, I don't think any society and any democracy can function. You can't make rules for everything. Right? You can't have a detailed constitution and all the laws you all want. In the end, it's about norms and human self restraint. However you come by that. Maybe it's your religion, maybe it's your upbringing. There are a wide variety of ways and people I hope reach that point where they exercise self restraint. But we've now gotten to the point where it appears that those norms no longer apply. That it's a game of gotcha that I can take some existing norm and try to find a way to break it and exploit it and use it against my enemies. Somehow we've got to get back to that notion of self restraint and respecting norms and not view everything as combat, which is basically what it's come down to, in the political system I think the problem has been that that activity, that conduct gets rewarded, people win elections and then they think, well, it worked. And other people see that, oh, it worked for her, it worked for him, now I'm going to do it. And so we've got to break this cycle of where people are rewarded for bad conduct.

0:38:07.0 S2: All right, thank you. I'm going to turn, I may come back to norms because it's like absolutely my obsession right now, but I want to turn it over to Daniel to ask some of your questions.

0:38:21.9 S7: Okay, not my questions. They're questions from our audience and a lot have come in and so I'll try to group them. The first is sort of more specifically about an issue. Is it possible to create equity for marginalized people and getting them the resources they need for productive and well meaning life without the other side shouting socialism and communism? Another question says pick one or two issues that both sides can agree on about uplifting marginalized communities. So these are, that's specific issue where people don't know where to turn.

0:39:02.5 S6: Well, I'll just say this. We are so far from that right now. I mean, we are in the process of erasing American history. We are in the process of erasing the contribution of anybody of color to the history of this country. That's got to stop. And then I think we can make progress on these other things. And look, we can debate affirmative action, we can debate DEI. That doesn't mean I think you're the devil incarnate if you don't believe in affirmative action. I'm pro choice, but I have a lot of pro life friends. I don't think they're bad people or evil because they disagree with me on a fundamental issue like that. So again, I think we've got to re establish some boundaries so we can have these discussions and then we can talk about how do we recognize the contributions of marginalized communities in this country. We're a long way for that right now.

0:39:51.6 S2: Yeah, I think you're right. We need to lower the temperature and really just the debate the policy issues.

0:40:00.7 S7: So a lot of questions about what is the truth and how do you have debates with people who don't seem to acknowledge facts? How do you facilitate those discussions? Where do you Find a manner of having a discussion with them when you're dealing with two different sets of facts.

0:40:23.4 S4: Well, that's one of the things that we've been discussing. And as a legislator, for all the ballot proposals that we send out, one of the things that we could send out that I got a lot of positive comments was the pro and the con of every ballot issue. People like being educated. They like the best arguments on either side. Nobody is monolith, and there's always black and white, and sometimes it's a shade of gray on ballot proposals. And so we've been discussing how we deal with some of these issues that some might, if you put out an article on this side, well, that's a trigger for the one side coming unglued, and if you put an article out on that side. And so that's a very good. And I think education is key in terms of presenting people, you know, both sides of the argument, because a lot of the issues aren't, you know, so cut and dry, and there's good arguments on either side.

0:41:36.6 S7: So a bunch of questions from students saying, how do we bring this into the classrooms and should this be taught in the classrooms? And what's your advice for students who, as was said earlier, only know this? How do you, what's your advice to students about how to have these discussions?

0:41:58.9 S3: Well, I'm pleased to see some of my former students here. I hope they've enjoyed the class. And one of the things I tried do is model that, because I wasn't quite as, you know, 6 and 6, as you've been able to do at MPLP. But we get a wide variety of folks from, you know, all backgrounds. So, you know, Rebecca's been there, Mark's been there. We've got Democrats, Republicans, Independents, men, women, people of color have come into the class, and I want them, and I like that variety, that diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of party, and also that they know that the professor knows somebody on all sides of the aisle, that everybody's welcome in the class because we can have a civil discussion about these issues. Right? And we can agree to disagree. So that's the best way I can do it.

0:42:48.8 S5: I think one of the most important things, though, is we actually do have to have the conversation. We actually have to talk to people who disagree with us. We have to listen and try to understand where they're coming from, try to understand where their information is coming from. If it feels like they don't have the same set of facts that I think I know. I want to understand how they got there. But I think one of the most dangerous things that we do right now is we choose our new sources based on our politics. We choose through algorithms. We get served up the things that lean a certain way once we start reading articles in a certain way. And we are not being as open every day to hearing that other side, which, you know, it's a very dangerous place to live in an echo chamber all the time. And we see this, we see some really interesting trends in the work that we're doing. And even in people choosing where to live based on the politics in a region, you know, people are moving to be with people who feel more like they do. And I think for the health of our democracy, for the health of our republic, we need to, it is the core of civil discourse, is actually having these conversations. So making sure we say when we think someone's wrong in a respectful way, ask questions, but it's important that our voice is heard.

0:44:15.5 S6: I think this is a, in a classroom, I think it's a responsibility of all the participants. I think the professors have to set a tone and an atmosphere. Look, I mean, when people come. I teach law school occasionally, you know, my background, you heard a little bit of it. But I also tell folks, look, you should be comfortable. And I try to do everything I can to make sure they are comfortable disagreeing with me. But I also think students have a responsibility. I think students in my experience have become increasingly intolerant of hearing other points of view. Meaning in my law school class, we debate whether Brown V Board was correctly decided. I'm sorry, we're going to have that debate. People need to have that debate. We're going to debate whether Obergefell was correctly decided. We need to have that debate. And people need to be open and tolerant of having that discussion and of listening to other people. That's not being insensitive, I think it's being a person who's open to other people's ideas and thoughts and willing to discuss them.

0:45:18.6 S3: Daniel, can I just share one quick anecdote? I apologize for this. So I'm not perfect, so please don't. I mean, all my students all know this, so I'll share that secret with everybody else here on the panel. So many years ago, I was press secretary for the Republican Party and trying to help John Engler win an election against the Democrat Jim Blanchard. And Jim Blanchard had a state treasurer who is a very powerful puncher for the Democrats and said something that I took great offense to about my candidate, John Engler, and it really steamed me up. Well, two days later, we had the first gubernatorial debate between Jim Blanchard and John Engler. I was part of the Republican spin team, and the state treasurer was part of the Democratic spin team. So we're up in Traverse City and we're in a hallway like this, and we're talking to the press about why our candidates won. And gradually the press diminished because they had to go file their stories until at the very end, there were three people left in the hall. Myself, the Democratic state treasurer, and my boss, the state party chair, Spencer Abraham. Well, I looked at that Democratic treasurer, and I am going to give you a piece of my mind to tell you what I really think of you.

0:46:31.5 S3: And it wasn't much. And before I could get over to the treasurer, my boss, the Republican Party chair, Spence Abraham, puts his arm around the treasurer and says, "Hey, Bob, let's go grab a beer in the bar and get a burger." And I'm like, wait, what? My boss likes this guy and we're going to have a beer together. But it was like the scales fell from my eyes. Right. It goes back to in person relationships. Bob was doing his job, we were doing our job. At the end of the day, we're not enemies, right? You know, Putin may be an enemy, the drug cartels may be an enemy. We're not enemies up here, right? We may be adversaries on a bill, but we live to fight another day, and maybe the next day we'll be, you know, co sponsors on a bill, right? That's the thing to take away from this.

0:47:18.6 S2: That's a fantastic story. Can I follow up on that? Do we have more questions, by the way?

0:47:25.3 S7: We got a few more.

0:47:25.9 S2: Okay, good. I wonder whether each of you would just share, because that's a very wonderful story, right? Like, you learned a lot in that moment. And this is one thing I think all of us can be aware of. All of us. And I'm speaking to the students in the room, I'm speaking to the professors in the room, I'm speaking to. No matter what your role in society is, we have an opportunity to model the kind of world we want to live in, right? And the kind of way we want to be treated by others. And you learned something in that moment. And so I wonder if each of you would mind sharing your own personal approach to handling someone who's just a prickly jerk. Just, you know, really awful. How do you do it?

0:48:29.2 S5: I've always used humor. I tend to resort to having a Little sense of humor about things. I have always done a thing that Mark alluded to as well, which is I never, ever, ever made it personal. You never would see a quote attributed to me calling one of my colleagues a name or saying that they were, you know, not intelligent or something. I might say their policy was problematic or that it had unintended or intended consequences that I didn't agree with, but I never made it personal. And I think that really helps you live to fight another day in policy making where you have to build coalitions, because people have long memories and they do not forget when you make it personal. We know people who had bills shelved for years because they got on the wrong side of a speaker or a Senate majority leader or somebody, so. Yeah. And trying to honestly stay grounded in a couple of things. Number one, great leaders like answering questions. You know, if you're dealing with great leaders, if you ask them questions about what they're moving, what they're trying to move, what they're trying to get you to vote on, and they don't want to hear the questions, they get angry or get upset.

0:49:42.4 S5: You know, they're either not as educated on it as they should be, or they know that they're doing something that's a little bit slippery or a little bit not right. And also that idea that keeping your grounding on why you're doing the work, right? And so, I would get up every morning and Tanya and I in the Senate together, we were only, the entire time we served in the senate together for eight years we were only a women's caucus of four. There were four women, and we served nearly 270,000 constituents. And some days you get up and you're like, for four years, I was the only woman in the Democratic caucus in the Senate. And I felt that pressure on my shoulders that I had to represent this whole section of my party, section of my constituents, these values that were so important. And somebody should just get up and you're like, I gotta get back in the ring today. Like, I'm tired. I just did that yesterday, right? But keeping your eye on the prize of the work is bigger than me, it's bigger than, I'm a little tired or have a little bit of a headache today or I'm hangry because I haven't had a chance to have anything to eat yet, it's keeping that focus of what you're in it for, right?

0:51:01.2 S5: And when you're serving, it was for those constituents that you represented and in the work that we're doing now it's, Tanya and I met up and had a brief chance to chat before we got here. And we're just sharing with each other how much we love that we get to work on this together and in our own way try to keep building the world that we want to live in. And that's the goal.

0:51:27.1 S4: I would agree with everything that Rebecca said. I would also, for the students in the room, say, you've only got one chance, and it's your word, and your word is your gospel. And sometimes you might have friends on both sides, and you got to pick a side. There's no 50-50 button. There's a green and a red button. And so your word is your, just stay true to yourself. And I also wanted to point out we've got a former Representative Maturin here. He was my carpool buddy for a couple of years from Kalamazoo, and he passed solid. Also, be an expert in your field and education. Know your things. Just a brief story. One of the, probably the most embarrassing things that ever happened to me, I can't even believe I'm going here, but is when I first became a legislator, we were in the middle of a government shutdown with Governor Granholm, and I was on policy committees. I was not on probes. And I took the Republican talking points. And Julie Mack, who is a wonderful, Just kind of just stayed at a reporter from the Kalamazoo Gazette called and said, "Well, how are you going to answer the budget crisis?" And I'm like, "Well, that's for the Appropriations Committee to figure out," because I was on policies.

0:52:53.5 S4: You take two tracks. She wrote this excoriating article. I thank God to this day she never called me out personally. But from then on out, I was embarrassed at myself. I wasn't being true to my constituents, and I wasn't being true to myself. So next term, I got on Appropriations, and, gosh, I knew that budget inside out. I was never going to not know the answer or think it was somebody else's responsibility. And it was a good life lesson that I faced. And we all have those experiences. And so from then on out, I sat on Appropriations and Policies Committee. So that's another learn from my mistake. Be educated in everything.

0:53:36.4 S3: I think two points going back to one of the points I made originally. I had a fabulous role model as a young lawyer, one of the greatest lawyers in the history of the state, who was a ferocious advocate. I mean, you would look in his eyes in a courtroom and, you know, it was just intense. But the moment court was over, he was friendly, he was civil, talking to opposing counsel, talking to opposing witnesses. And he had that remarkable self control and self restraint. And I think that's one thing. The other thing that I do is I try to find a way to compliment somebody who's an opponent. Go up to them and ask them about their family, ask them about something that you're probably gonna have in common, and try to find a way to make a human connection with them and diffuse the hostility.

0:54:27.9 S3: Well, you've heard my story. I would just say something I tell the students in my classroom, which is, if you're not happy with where we are today, you're the answer, right? I mean, I've sort of had my chance. Things haven't quite worked out the way I might have wanted to. But you get a chance to write your story and, you know, you're starting out. So run for office, work on campaigns, get involved, roll up your sleeves. You know, it's easy to criticize, right? People criticize me. They've criticized the senators. I'm sure you've heard plenty of criticism, criticized Mark. That's the easy part. The harder part is actually to do something about it. And that's what I think is so great about the Ford School. That's why I love the public policy school. I know you do this, Jenna, and I'm a big believer that if you want to make a difference, you need to be the difference. And it starts with you, right? It really starts with you. Don't expect Senator Warren or Senator schuitmaker or Chairman Brewer to say, "Well, boy, they sounded pretty good. I hope they solved this problem," because, you know, there we go, that's not going to do it, right?

0:55:29.1 S3: I mean, everybody here is doing their job, but it's going to take a lot more people rolling up their sleeves to change this. And if we don't change it, who is going to change it? If it isn't the Ford School, if it isn't the people here, who's going to make that difference? We can't offload this and say, "Boy, I hope somebody solves that problem. Man, it's a mess. Nothing is civil. Well, you know, I'm going to go cheer the Lions on now." We can't do that, can't do that. We've got some skin in the game. We need to do something about it.

0:56:02.8 S2: I want to pick up on that, and I want to take us back. I'm going to use it as a way of taking us Back to something that you brought up, Mark, which is norms, democratic norms. And you've mentioned self restraint a few times, so. And actually I want to take us back to something that Tanya mentioned about the way, you know, all the work that she was doing in the fall. We were worried. And I will say this, as you know, on behalf of those of us who are organizing the voting infrastructure on campus, a lot of our preparation was the day after, right? Like what happens if there's some challenge to the electoral outcome? We were very confident. And I actually loved being tiny bit on the inside, getting to know our tremendous city clerk, Jackie Boudreau. Amazing. But also just the transparency and the integrity of the system. Totally confident. But that doesn't mean that the voting public was gonna, or the elite were gonna feel confident. So we were doing the same thing, like really getting ready, trying to defend the integrity of our institutions. Then it was crickets, it was quiet, things were fine, and it turned into now defending our democratic norms.

0:57:24.0 S2: So that feels to me like a very different kind of problem. If you feel comfortable sharing it. If you could say, what does the phrase democratic norms mean to you? Like what is something that comes to mind? For example, self restraint or if we're talking about rule of law, what kind of element of rule of law is on your mind right now? And see, this is, I'm a tough professor, I've got a two parter question and what. So norms are defended by the public, by us. This is not someone else is going to come in and solve it. Norms are in our hands. So what would you say as a message of here's something you can do to defend these norms, or this is why it's so important for the ordinary citizen, which is, you know, almost all of us, to uphold these norms?

0:58:31.7 S4: Well, I would say stability. Stability is key. There's arguments on both sides, usually on an issue. And then you get in the human element. I'm very pro life, but I also, I have not walked through, through the footsteps of somebody who's been raped or had incest too. There's also the human component. You have the rule of law, but you also have then the very human component of everything.

0:59:04.7 S2: And so then the advice would be.

0:59:07.7 S4: Well, the advice is to going back is be educated on your arguments, know the Constitution, know, follow the court cases that are going on and to be civil, you know, as Mark said, you don't need to, you know, be a jerk. You know, we're all people, we're all in this together. And our system is set up for the yin and the yang. And that's really what kind of drives public policy forward is the yin and the yang.

0:59:43.3 S6: The three virtues that I would talk about in terms of a successful society and certainly a democracy, so it doesn't resort to violence. I've already mentioned self restraint, moderation, I think in all things. And humility. Humility in the sense that you might not know everything and your point of view on anything might be wrong, might be wrong. So I think those are three virtues that I think we all need to practice. In terms of kind of the legal system now, what I am most worried about is the concept of due process. But I would expand that to mean fairness. Again, we can write all the laws we want. We've got to do process clause in the Constitution. But in the end, we've got to treat each other fairly. And there's no law or no constitution that's going to force us to do that. But if we don't treat each other fairly, we see the terrible consequences that I think we're starting to see now.

1:00:42.9 S3: You know, just to pick up on that, and especially what you just said, I would say we can find common ground. For example, I'm pro life. You said you are, you know, you're pro choice. Obviously, Mark, I would assume you are too, but. And we're not going to change one another, right? And that's not my goal. But I might, if I was in the Senate right now, I might be able to go to Senator Warren and say, "Look, I want to pass this pro family legislation. Let's see what we can do to reduce the economic disparities for poor women that might drive them to seek an abortion. Maybe there's a way you and I could find some common ground here. You'll still be pro choice, I'll still be pro life. But we may be able to help women in need who might make a different choice if they weren't forced by economic circumstances, circumstances to feel they had to abort a child. So maybe we could come to some deal with their pro family piece of legislation." You know, there's common ground. Like right now, there's this huge, huge battle going on about DOGE, right? Anybody who's here has heard about this fight, Department of Government Efficiency.

1:01:45.5 S3: Well, I've been in government. Believe me, there's plenty to reform in government. And anybody who's been in government has idea. Now, yours may be different than mine, but like in the federal government, we can't even get computers to talk to one another. So can there be some Good faith reform to improve state or federal government? Of course. And I bet I could work with Mark or Senator Warren to come to some way to make things more efficient and better. So there may be some common ground if we approach it rationally there, as opposed to some willy nilly cutting of people and programs and this, that and the other thing. That's all I'd say let's find some common ground. Let's look for some common ground. Even if we may be on opposite sides of the aisle.

1:02:31.7 S5: I would say, echoing some of what Tanya said about civility being so important and we can be that, we can model that we can have those conversations. I think this idea of how important it is that we listen to each other but also being discerning about where we're getting information. And I've had a few conversations recently, even with friends who have forwarded on some things they saw on social media and then later found out it was completely not true, right? Like so being discerning before you put a little bit more white gas on the fire, maybe learn whether what you're repeating is actually based in fact or not. And this idea that we, I mean, democracy doesn't work by itself. We have to participate. So the idea that we get educated about issues, that we get involved at whatever level that is. There's all kinds of different government, you know, local government committees and boards and advisory positions that if you're not ready to take that step that Rusty talked about and actually run for office. But we absolutely need that. And I think it's a part of a lot of our origin story is that we didn't run for office ourselves until someone asked us.

1:03:52.0 S5: So consider yourself asked. If you haven't thought about it yet, maybe there is a future for you in being part of this system. And that's what it takes. It's good people, good people interested enough on a Wednesday afternoon to sit here in a room and have a conversation about civility and politics, putting themselves out there on the front line to be part of it. So I think that is the best advice that I could give.

1:04:17.9 S2: I love this advice. I'm going to summit and then I'm going to turn back over to Daniel to ask a few more questions. But just because these are some remarkable bits of advice that we just heard. Right? So humility, the two words I'm really trying to live by right now are curiosity and humility. And so humility, thinking it's possible that I'm wrong. It's always possible that I'm wrong. And so then, as Senator Warren reminds us, so read a little bit more and think about your sources. And then as Senator schuitmaker said, remember, it's a human. These are humans that you're interacting with. And then as Rusty said, and then from that, see if you can find some common ground. It's very rarely that this is really the art of public policy is finding that common ground. And it's very rare that an issue is either black or white, right? There's so many nuances. So like, explore that with a fellow human and with humility and information. Thank you. That's just phenomenal. Let's turn it over to Daniel.

1:05:35.4 S7: All right. Well, people are really appreciating the conversation. They're also noting that you all seem like nice people and centrist and, you know, but dehumanization is part of the political culture right now, and it comes from the top, according to the questioners, not my words. And politicians who talk about finding common ground are called weak and are attacked from both left and right. So how can the current leaders live by these values and still get elected?

1:06:15.5 S5: One thing I would say is I am living proof that it can be done. I had a very unique reputation when I was serving. I was voted by independent sources the most liberal member of the chamber that I served in for 13 of the 14 years that I was in office. The only one time I wasn't, my mother in law that I served with was ranked the most liberal that year. And then also I had the most, the highest number of bills that became public act signed into law of any member of the minority party in either chamber. And so I was both a standard bearer for the values of my caucus, the left of the left, and also worked with people, found that common ground, found ways to get things done. It can be done. And one of the challenges that I had for myself when Tanya and I went over to the Senate, you know, it's a small body. There's only 38 members in the Michigan Senate. And I made it a goal for myself that I was going to find an issue to work on with every single Republican member was going to find something.

1:07:23.9 S5: And it took me until the eighth year, I think, or the seventh year to get the very last one. And it was Dave Robertson, our colleague from Genesee County. He and I just could not find anything to work on together. And this is how granular you have to get sometimes. He wanted to work on basically like unarmed combat issues, mixed martial arts, like boxing, you know, this kind of and he was coming at it from a perspective that he was wanted to have professional sports. He wanted build up an amateur area so we could get professional sports. And I cared about things like do we have physicians at the sidelines? If people are going to engage in this kind of activity, can we make sure there's medical care there? And as women are more engaged in this, can we make sure there's some protections around that? So it took until seven years in the Senate, but I finally found a package of bills that I could work with him on because there was something I cared about and something he cared about so it can be done, unarmed combat.

1:08:27.9 S4: That does not sound weak.

1:08:30.0 S5: It does not.

1:08:32.6 S2: This is a very provocative question, so I'd love to hear from everyone.

1:08:37.1 S6: Well, look, people at the top only succeed in that if the rest of us allow it, right? And I'm not just talking about Democrats or Republicans or the president. There would have been demagogues on all sides of the aisle and Detroit area and Michigan's had a lot of them. You know, if we allow it to succeed, that's when it succeeds. If we allow people to take advantage and so hate division and so forth. And so you got to stand up. People just really got to stand up and be counted. On your other point about what happens to those people who dare to stand up, I think it goes back to something all of us have touched on. Look, I come from a very competitive county. You know, my mentor in politics, David Bonior, was accused by Ronald Reagan of basically being a communist sympathizer. He was called Commandante Bonior, I won't go into the '80s history, but how did he get reelected time after time after time again? By doing, even though he was doing incredibly progressive things in Washington, he was from the community, he knew the community. He walked door to door incessantly.

1:09:40.3 S6: People knew him and they said, well, Reagan may call him Commandante Boehner, I call him my friend, and I'm going to vote for him. I don't care what Ronald Reagan thinks of him. So again, it goes back to these human relationships and the willingness to work. And you can insulate yourself from those kinds of demagogic attacks by being part of a community and representing them and knowing them, not just coming to see them at election time. And these two know that you got to do it full time, not that you're campaigning full time, but you are building relationships and representing your constituents all year round.

1:10:17.7 S3: If you want a comment to that point, I would simply say, I think too often people confuse performance for results and strength is viewed as who can yell the loudest, who can type something in caps on Facebook or Twitter, and that's different from result. John Engler, who I worked with, delivered a lot of results, and that's why we won, because I think people felt like, well, he did what he said he would do. Mike Duggan, who's a Democrat in Detroit, gets reelected because I think he gets results, not because he's the loudest, not because John Engler is on Facebook or Twitter. But I think that's real strength, is people that get results that can actually move the football down the field and get stuff done. And there was one other point I wanted to make and it slipped my mind. But I will just stick with that for now.

1:11:12.7 S2: I can't believe it's march and you keep going to the Lions and football, basketball on right now.

1:11:18.8 S3: Sorry, sorry, sorry.

1:11:20.5 S5: I was just going to bring up what Chuck Schumer, and I've been no fan of Chuck Schumer in terms of his politics, but, you know, he voted not to shut down the government and things that, you know, they had complained that Republicans did and now he did to keep the government going, which is. And Republicans kind of have it on the same end, too, when they voted to keep the government going. And by golly, I want that debt to go down and, you know, want government spending to go down. As a conservative Republican, but I also can understand people that want to keep the government functioning, too. So, you know, back to Rusty's point about governing. And it's kind of been, we're getting in these echo chambers where it's, you know, it's hell hath no fury. So on either within. I mean, it's not only Republicans, Democrats, but it's Democrat and Democrat and Republican and Republican.

1:12:14.9 S3: I remember the point. If I could just interrupt real briefly, here's another story for everyone here. So, again, when I worked for Spence Abraham with the Michigan Republican Party, we brought in Ronald Reagan as our keynote speaker for the Senate Republican Dinner where John Engler was about to launch his campaign. They asked me to write the speech for the President, which I was more than happy to do. When Reagan came to Michigan, he read the speech that I had written, with two exceptions. He took out every personal reference I made to the governor, the Democratic governor, Jim Blanchard, and he took out every reference I made to the Democratic Senator, Carl Levin, both up that year. He read the rest of the speech the way it was written, but he never took a shot at anyone by name. And I've always remembered that and told that to my students. And no one would think Reagan is weak, right? Nobody, Democrat or Republican. No one thinks Reagan is weak, but he would not take personal shots in that speech. So let that be a lesson to us.

1:13:25.2 S7: Okay, so people are looking for advice on sort of specifics like, I live in a community where there are all sorts of points of view. How do I do this? And you're talking about being informed. Is there an issue that you can think of amongst you where that would open a discussion? Because people are kind of, there are a bunch of questions here saying, how do I do this? What do I do? What can I talk about?

1:13:51.7 S3: For civility, you mean? Is that.

1:13:53.8 S7: To start these conversations.

1:13:55.6 S3: Oh, okay.

1:13:57.7 S4: I think people care about where they work, play, and live. And I think if you keep it to the kitchen table, issues that everyone cares about. You know, we may have differences of how we get there, but we all want a great community with a good environment that's not polluted, that we can send our kids out to and they can play. The streets are safe. We all want that.

1:14:22.1 S6: I think it should be something positive that people can rally around. One of the things that we do, in my neighborhoods in Macomb county, we do a cleanup of the riverbank every year, and it's open, and we have Democrats, Republicans, Independents Non Partisans show up, because it's something we can all work on, and it's a positive project. So I would urge those questioners to think about something positive they can do in their community with others that does involve partisanship, and that's a start toward rebuilding trust and civility, I think.

1:14:55.3 S3: That's great.

1:14:56.6 S5: I think also just starting to. You know, it's like any muscle when you start working out for the first time in a while, you have to stretch it and get it warmed up. I think starting to have these kinds of conversations wherever we already are, with our families, with our friends, with our sororities or fraternities, with our, you know, the folks in our church and our synagogues. Like being able to take these two values that you've been talking about, being front and center of curiosity and humility, trying to understand what is motivating somebody who has an opinion that's different than yours and show that it's okay, that we can model, that it's okay to have a conversation where we don't agree, but we still like each other, we still respect each other, each other, we can continue the conversation. I think the more familiar we get with it, the easier it will be to do it on those more contentious issues that are facing our country.

1:15:56.6 S3: I agree. I agree. If we could find something to make, like you said, find some way to make a difference, a positive, a difference in your community. Fixing up a playground, for example, or whatever the case might be, and you get to know someone, then you build these relationships, then the defense shields come down a little bit, right? Then Mark's not such a bad guy. Rebecca's not such a bad gal. Maybe, you know, we worked on that. Maybe we can work on something else that'll make our community better.

1:16:23.9 S2: How's the list look?

1:16:25.6 S7: I could throw a couple more out.

1:16:27.1 S2: I'm just thinking maybe one or two more questions.

1:16:29.7 S7: Okay, so back to some of the comments at the beginning that we look at President Ford and President Carter. What era of history? Put on your history caps. When did we have a great amount of discourse that led to good things? And how do we make that historical example relevant for today, that people can look back and see a time when people accomplish things across the aisle?

1:17:02.9 S2: And it might be within state history or even more local. Just saying.

1:17:07.6 S4: Well, I think what your students should do is to go back and look at the debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. They referred to each other as my distinguished opponent. We need to get back to that place where it's not personal and to talk about the issues facing our great country and our great state, and to go back there.

1:17:34.3 S6: I think a model in Michigan history would have been the 1970s, when Michigan was governed by a Republican governor, Governor Milliken. But there were strong Democratic majorities in the legislature, and they accomplished an enormous amount together. Our civil rights law dates to the 1970s. Our consumer protection laws date to the 1970s, and so many other things that they found common ground on and worked together. So it can be done. So in Michigan history, that's the most recent example I can think of. Unfortunately, it's been downhill since then, on both sides of the aisle.

1:18:14.6 S3: So, again, a short story, if you'll indulge me. So when I was at Michigan Republicans, I was working for Spence, we had a terrible mess on our hands, and we were trying to resolve it. And I happened to be with Spence, my boss, that dad was the driver, and he decided he was going to go meet former Governor Romney, who had a house in Oakland County. So it was my purpose to drive. I think we're at the economic point club that day. So I drove up from Detroit to Oakland. And, you know, I'm a staffer so we walk in the house, and I know what my job is. Kind of, you know, sit over here while the bigwigs talk. And immediately, I think Mrs. Romney Lenore, opened the door. And then immediately the former governor, George Romney says, "Come on in." So it was a fairly modest house. We walked down this little hall to a conference room, very small at the end. And we all sit down. The former Governor Romney, my boss Spence, Mrs. Romney Lenore. And I'm there. And we sat for maybe two minutes. And George Romney gets up and, you know, God forgive me, I just thought, well, he's older, maybe he needed to go to the bathroom. Because that happens to me now, right?

1:19:29.5 S3: So he's gone and we're making small talk, you know, just a bunch of us waiting for him to come come back. Because here's the reason we're there for the meeting. And when he comes back, he's got a tray, a platter and a big pitcher of lemonade and a bunch of cookies. And he goes to his wife, Lenore first, then me. He doesn't know me from Adam, right? He's never met me before in his life. Come to me next. Then dispense puts him down. And then we talked about what the problem. I thought, you know, what a great thing, right? And I remember reading there was some protest, pro lifers were protesting, some clinic, and voices were raised and people were shouting and temperatures rising. It was just getting to be a very ugly scene. And in the midst of this, someone showed up, plopped down a card table with a pot of coffee and donuts, just immediately lowered the temperature. That doesn't always work, but it's not a bad start, right? If we can just sort of lower the temperature, bond over some food and drink, that solves a lot of it. That at least gets us at a table together, and then we can sort of go from there.

1:20:40.0 S2: That's fabulous. I am wondering if I can ask a last question. Okay. So you're all just amazingly impressive people, and we knew you were impressive from the bios. And I've had the very good chance of meeting some of you in the past, actually, I think maybe all four of you at some point. But there's not a person in this room who doesn't believe that each one of you loves our country after what you've shared with us over the last hour plus. And so I just want to close by asking each of you, thinking about this position, you each are in pretty impressive positions. How will you use this position over the coming year on behalf of our country. And where do you think your energy, what good do you think your energy might do for us?

1:21:37.9 S5: I'll say in our chance to have a little pre chat before being here today, Tanya and I were sketching out some different places around the state that we would like to be with some different communities, faith communities, and some of our, from our legislative colleagues, some campuses and other parts of the state where we don't want this to be just a one day conversation. We want to plant the seeds that we hope we're planting today in other places around the state throughout the rest of this year because we do have an opportunity. Even though we do feel like it's an ongoing election cycle, we have a less active election cycle this year. It gives us a chance to have slightly lower temperatures, to have these conversations to really with an eye to, you know, big elections again coming in another year and what that will look like. So that's, I think the most important thing for us is to make sure that we're getting out there, that we're having these kinds of conversations with folks all over the state.

1:22:45.1 S4: I would echo. I can't. You said it great.

1:22:51.0 S6: Yeah. I think there's three things that I try to do. One is I think in my personal behavior, be a model and not always successful. But I think it's important to try the kind of civility and some of the things that we've talked about here today. One of the things that I also am getting to work on, my party has become very intolerant. When Hillary Clinton called supporters of Donald Trump deplorable in 2016, that was horrible. It was terrible. That kind of attitude has to stop inside both parties and my party is guilty of it as well. My party has driven pro life people out of it. We are intolerant of anybody pro life. We've got so many litmus tests. And so one of my missions, one of my goals inside the party is to try to make our party more tolerant and more understanding the people we think we represent and we do, but we don't treat them like we do. And then in my professional life, it's defending the rule of law, due process, the norms of our society, particularly here in Michigan.

1:24:00.9 S3: Well, I would hope that my students and students at the Ford School and Michigan, not just the Ford School of Public Policy, but throughout Michigan, kind of get active in politics, get active in civic life, in the broader community and make the difference that you want to see. I mean, if you're not happy with where we are. This is the generation that's going to start to change that. Be salt and be loving in the community and be an example and model yourself. Don't just ask Senator Warren and Senator schuitmaker and Jenna and the dean and Mark here to do it. But, you know, there's a role for everybody to play. And I think we all have unique skills and talents that we bring, different from what we have up here. And, you know, we're not in the legislature anymore, but you can be, and you can sort of take the place of people up here to make this state, to make your community, make America different and better, and improve on what we've done. There's no reason why it can't be better, but it won't be better unless somebody here rolls up their sleeves and does that. And I really encourage everyone to play your part. Take a look and be honest and see what you can do, because I think there's something everybody can do.

1:25:05.1 S2: And if you want to continue to have that conversation, we invite you to join Together's Pacific Resilience. Julia, I think, is out. Where's Julia? There she is. Julia's wonderful. She keeps Rebecca and I on, Julia Pulver does so much for our organization. And you can see her about signing up, or you can go to our, we have a QR code down here at the bottom, so thank you.

1:25:29.1 S1: Well, please join me in thanking these four tremendous Americans.

[applause]